It’s day 4 on the Hayduke Trail. I’ve already made it from Arches National Park, through Moab, via an alternative called Jacksons’s Trail, and up to Canyonlands. Yesterday, I stopped at “Tom’s Basecamp and Adventure Lodge”. Tom has a world-renowned frisbee course in the desert and it also happens to be right in Hayduke, offering the last convenient stop on the water for almost 50 miles. There may be some varying levels of «alkaline» desert water during this stretch, which may taste like a whiff of salt, or one may hunt tamarisks to reach the Colorado River from Lockhart Canyon. But Tom assures me that it’s a nearly impossible trip and that I have to fill up enough to make it to my next stop at Needles Outpost in Canyonlands National Park. So I fill up my heaviest load of water yet: 9.5 liters (21 pounds) and continue my journey west.
On Tom’s porch.
The desert environment has already been incredibly different from any other hike: huge canyon walls, hills and rock formations. Dusk and dawn are when the desert is most beautiful: painted skies, pink rocks, and cool temperatures.
So this morning on Day 4, I get up before dawn and walk briskly to an alternate route that takes you on a fun run along some cliffs to Lockhart Basin. I’m walking on a slippery rock and looking at my paper map to compare the landscape, and that’s when I come to a groove in the slippery rock that I don’t notice. In a split second, my balance goes off and I’m suddenly walking on the outer edges of my feet: both ankles have rolled outwards and I feel a sickening sensation of numbness or tingling. “AGHHH!” I grunt as I stumble back onto the balls of my feet. I know I’ve done something serious, but I drop my backpack (the heaviest of them all) and stumble in circles. «It’s okay, it’s okay! I can walk! It’s okay,» I proclaim to myself, already in denial.
I put my pack back on and continue the fight and successfully make my way down a cold crack in the cliff to the road below, ignoring the pain and not realizing that this single misstep will plague every mile from now on.
I walk about 20 miles the rest of the day with some pain.
It’ll be better in the morning, right? Mistaken.
Day 5 brings more soreness, swelling and soreness. I get going and quickly realize that I need to do something to stabilize my (left) ankle, which is extremely painful. But not bruised? I wrap it with some Rock Tape (similar to KT tape, a type of elastic tape), making ‘stirrups’ and ‘figure 8s’ with the tape, and walking becomes more manageable. I realize I really should give it a rest. After a few kilometers, I arrive at the “circular viewpoint”, a huge viewpoint of the gooseneck of the Colorado.
A few miles on day 5 is all I can walk. I sit here watching «the loop» for hours. At least the view is good.
Uncertainty, disappointment, and thoughts of “calling it quits” run through my mind as I sit on a ledge and watch the river, literally all day. But then I remember the Backpacker Radio episode with ‘Handstand’, where he talks about a badly sprained ankle. I remember him saying he kept walking on it, how painful it was at first, but he finally finished his walk. Sure the healing was delayed, but she was able to put the walk first.
So that’s what I decide I’m going to do too.
Fast forward to the 23rd: I’m hitchhiking in Escalante to do a double zero to rest said swollen ankle, but I’ve been able to walk a few hundred miles on it. The pain has lessened, but has not resolved. The pain remains around a 3 out of 4 on a scale of 10.
but me can walk.
The movement was slow and painful after leaving Needles, but I slowly picked up a rhythm: through the rest of Canyonlands, up to Young’s and Dark Canyon, up a ‘chimney’ crack in a cliff near Hite, over the ‘Red Benches’, along the Dirty Devil River, and finally up to this snag from Poison Springs.
I had to climb up the ‘chimney’ with a compromised ankle, but I made it!?
He as walking with a sprained ankle The question becomes simple: stick it and keep walking. And if you can walk, can you walk? I’m not sure if it’s best for my ankle or best for my ankle, but I’m not going to let it ruin my hike, not this time.
This website contains affiliate links, which means The Trek may receive a percentage of any products or services you purchase using links in articles or advertisements. The buyer pays the same price they would otherwise pay, and their purchase helps support The Trek’s ongoing goal of bringing you quality backpacking information and advice. Thank you for your support!
For more information, visit the About page of this site.
