Eight years ago I packed up my Corgi, threw her in the car, and we went for a little drive in a chaotic and unspecific westerly direction. I’d seen a lot of Utah having grown up here, but the west desert was kind of an unknown to me, and I found its quiet and dry rolling hills and mountaintops to be peaceful and somewhat unique in a way. There wasn’t a lot out here in the way of specific landmarks and curiosities, at least on a very surface ‘just out for a drive’ level.

Once you pass Tooele and continue south, the landscape opens up and there’s really nothing out there, not so much as a rogue gas station. But at some point as you continue down the highway, people with ‘Weird Trail Fixation Syndrome’ might notice the hallmark round triangular shaped sign that stands alone on the highway, marking a section of the Pony Express Trail. Off the heels of my PCT hike I couldn’t say no, it would have been illegal to just ignore it. We turned onto the dirt road and drove over a mountain pass to look over the vast vacant dry dusty desert. I stood there staring, my dog wandered around eating grass and rolling around in the dirt. The usual routine.

We would frequent different spots in the west desert, but the Pony Express Trail was kind of a thing for us over the years, so much so that it was the last place I ever took my dog to before she died shortly after, but not before – when realizing where we were going – perked right up from being largely immobile and was able to get one more little meander in before saying goodbye. It was our luck that there was a sunflower superbloom going on during that time, cementing it as kind of a place to go that provides oddly specific and perfect moments in my mind. It’s a place that’s not just sentimental to me, there’s just something about it. There was a moment on our last day when I lifted her back into the car and before I closed the door I caught her intently staring out at the landscape, and while I can’t presume to know what was going on in her dogbrain, I knew we were both in that moment together. So we both just kinda sat there and looked out at the landscape together one more time. There is definitely just something about the desert I’ll never be able to describe.

I’ve always wanted to do something out there, and I can’t think of a better way to step back into my hiking shoes with all my gear (which is now packed and ready to go, of course). I love high alpine mountain adventures but to my core I think I am a bit of a desert rat, a sunburn that set in on my first long distance hike from the border of Mexico that never quite healed. I already have a route ready to go, but I’m making some adjustments. The initial plan was to just walk the length of the Pony Express Trail through this region of Utah, but something about it just didn’t seem all that exciting, and there’s all kinds of little weird desert things a bit more south of it so I’m re-doing it to make it into a little loop.

As I’m mapping it out I’m getting little bits of my enthusiasm back, which is what this is all about. There are some places that will unfortunately be a little out of reach that I’ll have to rework into future plans, but still make my jaw hit the floor nonetheless. Things like this.

I don’t know how you can see something like this and not feel a little excited. Maybe places like this could be part of a little bike/hike route, I dunno. The possibilities shape the future.

The route is generally just following dirt roads, as this is my first time back in a while (save for a little AT section hike I did recently) I’m starting off simple. It’ll make drops a lot faster to finish so I can just get out there and do the thing. I don’t anticipate it being boring, the sights along the way look more than enough to enjoy and make it a worthwhile trip. It follows the Pony Express Trail along the northern end, the southern end follows a series of other dirt roads back up to the starting point.

I’m starting near the highway but ending near a little campground just after the pass by a little monument to someone’s fallen doggo. I saw value in starting off with a climb but there’s little value to ending it by coming back to the highway, there’s nothing particularly special about it, in fact the only thing to see is a grotesque resort neighborhood with a man-made lake so… that’s not what I want to finish off a hike with. I may even scrap the first little bit to just start/end the loop in the same place, it’s all fluid.

Here’s a silly old vlog of the early Pony Express days for funsies starring my dog and old trail buddy Exo.

The plan is to start early next month. Only took eight years but I’m finally going out there to do this thing and get this momentum started back up.