DWTH – Twig Adventures

DWTH Day 27: The Turtle Mountains…Wow!

March 7, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Thursday, Feb 27th 2025, 0600-1710HWY 95 to west Turtle Mtns Wilderness Boundary mm79, Section 624 miles. The wind picked up even more overnight, so I decided to put my tent into ‘bivy mode’ to reduce the flapping. I discovered this trick on past hikes. I just have to remove my center trekking pole, leaving everything else as is. I don’t mind having the walls collapsed on top me… it’s probably even extra insulation against the cold. I also took a Benadryl and put my ear plugs in, both because of the noise of the highway and the wind. All these hacks worked brilliantly. I was dead to the world most of the night. In the morning, I reinserted my pole so[…]

DWTH Day 26: Whipple Mountains

March 5, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Wednesday, Feb 26th 2025, 0540-1740Whipple Wash to HWY 95 mm3, Section 6A24 miles. The wind started blowing pretty hard in the middle of the night, flapping my tent annoyingly. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I just started packing. Even though the time had changed by 1 hour, I was still waking up just before dawn…that just so happened to be before 5 am now. I needed all the time I could get this day, as I knew it would be a long and hard one. I would be climbing to a ridge, navigating the high country for something like 8 miles, all cross country. It also involved a gain of over 2k’. I’d climbed so[…]

DWTH Day 25: Whipple Wash

March 3, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Tuesday, Feb 25th 2025, 0800-1740Outside Parker mm2 to Whipple Wash mm22, Section 623 miles. My watch and phone were on different time zones in the morning, so not trusting either, I started the day a little late. California is one hour behind Arizona…but only for another few weeks when DST takes effect. Then they will both be on the same time, since AZ doesn’t observe DST. It was also just really hard to say goodbye to Alan and resume my lonely journey. I was very eager to get back on trail, just also apprehensive about the lack of water and the heat going into the Mojave. I knew the upcoming section was the longest and most difficult of the route.[…]

DWTH: 3 Day Midway Caching Hiatus

March 2, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Feb 22nd-24th, 3 zeros to cache food \ water through sections 6-8, and hang out with my friend Alan. Bonus 9 mile hike to Eureka peak in Joshua Tree NP. If you followed my blogs over the summer of 2024, you’d have noted a lot of posts about Alan. I first ran into him while I was hiking the Teton Crest Trail and he was hiking through on an alternate of the CDT. We hung out in Jackson Hole for a day, then hiked together for a few days in the Winds. Then I chased him down in Colorado and made him hike a bunch of 14ers. I last saw him in Lake City, CO as he was setting off[…]

DWTH Day 24: Parker

March 2, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Friday, Feb 21st 2025, 0720-1000Colorado river to Parker, mm 109.5 End Section 54 miles My stealth spot worked out just fine. A few vehicles drove by in the middle of the night and the highway traffic noise was pretty atrocious, but it was still a pretty awesome spot. I didn’t even feel the need to pack super early before I was discovered. I made coffee, took my time, and enjoyed the bird sounds along the river in the morning. The coots were really talkative I had an easy couple miles into town. It was a good thing I didn’t keep going the night before because I would have ended up on tribal land. There was actually legit camping along the[…]

DWTH Day 23: Tiabombs For Those That Make It Across the Desert

February 25, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Thursday, Feb 20th 2025, 0710-1830Buckskin Mtns to Colorado River mm106, Section 518 miles. I wasn’t quite sure what to do by the end of this day. I’d planned to get to Parker on Friday, but was once again ahead of schedule. I could easily make it to town, but since the Parker OVR motor race was taking place over the weekend, all the hotels were either booked or the prices severely jacked up. The Quality Inn had rooms for over $200 a night, which left the very lowly rated Budget Inn for $125. I’d already booked a night for that rate on Friday and didn’t want to spend any more money on a crappy room. There were no Airbnbs anywhere.[…]

DWTH Day 22: Burros will make America Great Again

February 25, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Wednesday, Feb 19th 2025, 0650-1830Bill Williams River to Buckskin Mtns mm 88 Section 523 miles. Sometime in the night I heard many splashings in the river nearby. The noise was like a loud ker-plunk, followed by another and another. It was a comical sound, bringing the image of a kid doing a cannonball into a pool. What animal would be making such a sound? Certainly not a burro. A large fish or turtle? A Bill Williams River dolphin? Gulch Otters? An Escalante beaver? God I hoped not…those were the worst! The strange thing was, I didn’t hear any other noises like grunting, breathing, hooves on the ground, etc. Finally I landed the most plausible explanation: it must be a squadron (this[…]

DWTH Day 21: Bill Williams River

February 24, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Tuesday, Feb 18th 2025, 0730-1830Bill Williams River to same river, mm 65 Section 523 miles. Oh what a day. It started with a bang, needing to walk about a mile and a half down the river. I wasn’t sure what to expect, given that I hadn’t asked the rangers how much water was being released. I’d seen the river flowing at the end of the previous day, but it was hard to tell how high it was. Apparently it can fluctuate a bit. I started worrying about the upcoming fords sometime in the middle of the night. What if they were too difficult? I got a late start intentionally because it was cold in the morning, thus not fun to[…]

DWTH Day 20: Lake Alamo

February 23, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Monday, Feb 17th 2025, 0710-1840Past Leroy Tank to Bill Williams River, mm 42.5 Section 525 miles. It was another long but incredibly productive day! I didn’t get as early of a start as I wanted to. It was chilly in the morning, which I should have taken better advantage of because it got pretty hot in the afternoon. The morning was relatively easy-going as I walked across a low valley between ranges. I was glad to put the Harcuvar range behind me as I headed north and west on a series of dirt roads and in washes. The valley seemed really remote, so I was surprised that I had cell signal. I could see some towers on top of the[…]

DWTH Day 18: Salome

February 22, 2025 kaulua26 Desert Winter Thru Hike

Saturday, Feb 15th 2025, 0700-0800End of Section 4, mm50 hitch into Salome1 mile. I had a restful sleep, despite the highway noise, which was pretty minimal. Pulling a massive day before will do that to a person. I was on the highway bright and early, trying to get a ride. There was a sketchy car parked right where I started, so I walked a ways down the road to get away from it. On the one hand, drivers might think I’d broken down. But on the other hand, the car looked so sketch that it also would reflect poorly on me. Besides, people are leery of the broken down vehicle act, a fraud to get people to stop and then[…]

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