Day 8: Slot Canyon Explorations

March 8: Today would be our longest day on the trail to date and to work around that, the time for breakfast was adjusted. The night before it was announced that breakfast would be served at 6:45am, 15 minutes earlier than usual, so I was taken by surprise when they started calling that breakfast was ready at 6:30. I didn't mind the earlier breakfast--the sooner we ate, the sooner we could hit the trail and start hiking! But it took me by surprise so I needed a few extra minutes to finish changing into my day's hiking clothes and get my scarf on.

The pile of luggage that would be transported ahead to our next campsite. (My bag is the yellow one in the back.)

After breakfast, a lunch table was set up where we threw everything we wanted into a paper sack. We were warned that there was nowhere during the day that the support crew could come out so everything we needed for lunch today we had to pack in.

From camp, we walked maybe a mile or so past a mosque seemingly in the middle of nowhere along with several donkeys before descending into a narrow canyon.

We'd follow the bottom of this narrow canyon the entire day--about 15 miles in all. It was a beautiful canyon, turning into slot canyons at places where sheer cliffs towered high above. I was glad there was no rain in the forecast nor had it rained recently because flash floods could certainly be an issue here. The evidence of them was everywhere we looked.

Gorgeous patterns showed in sections where the sandstone rock had been smoothed by erosion.

Karolina admires the beautiful patterns in the rock.

Overall, the day's hiking wasn't especially difficult. All downhill, but a barely perceptible downhill. The biggest difficulty, once again, was the sandy ground that grew tiring. There were a couple of small drops in the canyon bottom when the trail went over a rock and continued several feet down which required a bit of a scramble, but those sections never slowed us down more than a minute or so and I could count on one hand the number of scrambles that were required.

Deep in the canyon, we were in shade most of the day which provided a comfortable retreat from the burning sun and kept the air temperatures cool.

Late in the afternoon, we finally arrived in camp. We camped in the canyon itself where the canyon walls widened into rugged terrain on both sides. The support vehicles were able to drive up the sandy bottom from the other direction.

The slot canyons were amazing!

Today was the last day of hiking with our camel. He had other arrangements, I guess, and I was a little sad to see him go.


Although we covered a longer distance today than yesterday (24 km vs. 22km), I actually took more steps yesterday (39,500) than today (35,672). Several thousand more! I attributed that to all the trash I picked up yesterday, zigzagging through the desert to pick up items.

I picked up trash today as well, but was confined in the narrow canyon which prevented unnecessary zigzagging. And because I knew there would be no support vehicles meeting up with us along the way to take the trash bags, I didn't start picking up trash until late in the day. No reason to pick up trash early in the day, fill up my trash bags, then carry it all day without the ability to pick up more.

And! There wasn't as much trash to pick up in the first place. So I spent a lot less time picking up trash, and zigzagged around much less. I was pretty shocked at how many thousands of steps my picking up trash generated, though! It was the only reason I could think of for all the extra steps I took yesterday.

Today was also Thomas's birthday and the support crew brought out a birthday cake to celebrate. I hoped a lot of people on our trip would be having birthdays during the hike. It would be nice, I thought, if someone had a birthday every single evening of the trip! =)

After dark, I went out again to search for scorpions. I hunted around for nearly a half hour but came up empty-handed. The scorpions just weren't running around at the moment.

But all-in-all, a very satisfying day on the trail.

There were quite a few donkeys we passed near our campsite in the morning.

Here we're descending into the canyon that we'd be following for pretty much the entire day.

Such beautiful formations! Who knew there was so much beautiful scenery in Jordan?!

Today, Lina got to ride our camel for a bit. It was the last day we would have a camel hiking with us.