We woke up at the, still relatively early for us, time of 8:30am. We did this in anticipation of a long hot hike around the Syncline Loop. We also did this an hour later than we intended. We enjoyed breakfast, coffee, and living outdoors, hitting the 5 mile road to the trailhead at 9:30.

We prepared ourselves for our first significant hike of the year and walked out of the parking lot at the eerily consistent time of 10:00am. Despite the common sense of starting a few hours earlier, 90% of our desert hiking starts at 10:00am. It’s a little ridiculous. We hiked the Syncline Loop last year as our first hike as well, choosing to do it as an overnight with backpacks. It was tough and rewarding. Hiking it without backpacks today was more rewarding. This is, as so many signs in the first mile warn you, a “strenuous trail that is difficult to follow “. True. The first few miles involve dropping of the mesa that is Island In The Sky down to the valley floor. It is a wash hike for the new few miles and then begins an aggressive ascent up a very steep and exposed (as in you don’t want to fall) boulder pile. It is exhilarating and we are still shocked we did it with backpacks. After the scramble up the steep, the trail is then just intermittently steep as you try to regain the mesa elevation. The park service signs are 1.5 miles optimistic in length, quoting 8 miles for the 9.5 mile trail. Also, the Utah desert is very hot in the direct sunlight, if not in the ambient temperature of 74 degrees.

Very pleased with ourselves we returned to camp about 4:00 for a snack and cold drink. We headed the 7 miles to the visitor center for internet, a phone call to Brian’s folks, and then home for some Mac and cheese and tuna fish and iPad cinema. Bedtime came early, for us, at around, 9:00. It was a glorious day.