Miles: 28 Steps: 56,124 Vertical gain: Strava Knows! Liquid consumed: 160 oz. Wildlife: Lots of birds in Lake Powell and a couple ravens around a campground Faith in Humanity: Quite a few people waved from their cars when I was walking along UT 95, a paved highway Big day at 28 miles today! Woke up at my absolutely beautiful campsite surrounded by huge sandstone domes that are so common to this area yet so rare in the rest of the world it seems... I packed up quickly and was on the “trail” at 6:40am, just enough light for cars to see me. UT 95 does not have much traffic at all! Today is Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend and I was amazed at how few cars passed! Everyone is thinking skiing since it’s the end of November I guess? I’d encourage folks to change their mindset and still keep Desert UT on their radar this time of year. It’s been beautiful and high 60s with zero rain for days! I’m sure the area gets storms too, but honestly this is amazing, get out here! The road was incredibly beautiful today! All sorts of huge red rock canyons, sandstone domes, a nice little creek flowing in an enormous wash for many miles, really non stop beauty. I made pretty quick miles, moving along at the rapid pace of 3.2 miles per hour or so! Time passed quickly, however and I was in a nice rhythm. Fast miles on the road. I listened to some music and some podcast episodes and generally enjoyed life and my surroundings. It’s the 25th of November marking the official 4 full months of Walk The Parks! Woo! It made me think: what is a month? 30 days or the exact date, the 25th? Kind of silly really, our culture’s focus on time. Anyway, these thoughts didn’t lead to any real conclusions, but they were thought. After 19 miles or so I made it to my turnoff from the paved road and onto dirt. I was excited for this, but the first few miles were deep, loose sand, creating excruciatingly slow and arduous conditions for walking. Oh well, at least it builds some different muscles I suppose. I took a long break at the first shade I came to, ate some tuna and relaxed. At the end of the day I found the 2 gallons of water I stashed a few weeks ago and was thankful they were there. This wasn’t a great place to camp, so I held a gallon in each hand and hiked uphill for the last half hour before sunset. Talk about exhausting! Especially after already hiking 27 miles! I climbed out of a wash and went off the road a ways to camp. I try to hide myself from the road so no one messes with me or pulls into my campsite by accident since I don’t have a car to indicate my presence. I’m sort of out of sight, but not 100%, but I’m not too worried. Last night I camped around 3,750 feet, and tonight I’m at 5,900 feet. Tomorrow I’ll climb to 10,500 feet then camp somewhere below. Kind of crazy to gain 6,000 feet in only a day and a half! Excited to see what it’s like. I’m laying under my tarp nice and warm in my sleeping bag. Going to read some of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. In some ways it’s nice not having cell service for so long (going on 5 days now), as I really do love to read but find it much easier with no distractions at all!