Into the Unknown: The Desert Drifter's Final Voyage (Part 1)

Nothing but shenanigans, my friends. I'm glad you were with me. I could feel your presence. All right, I've been on the go for a little bit now. I think I'm about to come to the canyon edge. Okay, here's the start of the canyon. It cuts deep and it cuts quick up there. If I can find enough water to stay down here a couple days, I think we're in for a special trip. Oh man, look at that. There's an old structure on top of that pillar. Let's see if we can find a way over to that. Oh wow, look at that. That's why you want to be careful when you're walking on ledges out here. You never know if they're going to be overhung like that and just you step out on it, you don't realize it's only like a foot or so of sandstone. You never know if it's going to give out or hold. Most likely hold, but you don't want to be that one person that finds out it doesn't hold. Looks like this jumble. Oh, you know, I could probably get down right there. Look at that. There's not much left, but that's crazy. I mean, it's a great spot for defense. All you need is maybe a 15-foot ladder from there to there. You pull that up at night, nobody's touching you. Look at that little remnants of a wall or something. There's zero way I'm going to be able to get up that thing without a ladder. I'll have to get the drone on it. Gosh, their ingenuity, man. Don't you wish you could have seen that thing when it was freshly built? While I was flying the drone getting some of those pillars, I realized I'm basically standing on top of a pretty large site. So, of course, we've got to go look at that thing. A little tricky with the backpack. All right, we're in. Oh, wow. Look at these pictographs here. Wow, look at those storage bins here. Big slab-lined top. Look at that. Like top-loading. Wow. The level of preservation is insane. What's this? A flake of some kind. Yeah. Some corn cobs in there. Wow. Look at that. There's a lot to take in here. I don't know where to start. Let's start with maybe this top-loading granary here. This camera will give a better picture. You've got these big sandstone slabs here. And then, yeah, it's been covered up with mortar. You've got the roof of probably criss-crossing sticks down in there. This opening would have been covered when it was actually in use. Maybe the sandstone slab was on it. Maybe it's long since broken. It's just like granary after granary. This one, you can really see the roof construction, which is pretty cool. Again, big slabs there at the back and the sides. I mean, these things are big. They could have really accommodated a lot of survival essentials. Corn, beans, seeds, oils, water. Who knows? These ones down here are just particularly solidly built. So well-preserved. Look at that. That's got to be. I mean, you can't say that that's not decorative. That's 100%. These people had style, and they weren't afraid to show it. What's that right there? It looks like kind of sharpening grooves or something. Oh! Wow! Look at that. That's a footprint. Holy cow. I mean, that's deep. Oh, wow! This is. Look, there's corn cob impressions. This is really something. That foot. That's decent. That's kind of human size. That's decent. That's about adult size for back then. Maybe adolescent, but it's not like it's a kid's foot. I wonder what it meant to them. Traveling these deserts alone, I've encountered my fair share of sketchy characters. Unfortunately today, these dangerous characters find us everywhere, particularly while we're browsing the internet. Thanks to today's sponsor, Surfshark, I don't have to worry about my internet safety any longer. Surfshark includes a VPN, which hides your device from others online. This is especially useful when I'm traveling and on public Wi-Fi. I always worry who might be trying to tap into my personal info while sharing the same internet connection. But it does a lot more than that. This is the time of year many of us are shopping or booking flights online. Until I started using Surfshark, I had no idea that the prices I saw for products and flights was often adjusted to the location and device I was searching from. Meaning, you could be paying more simply because you live where you live. This is known as online price discrimination, and Surfshark ensures you get the lowest price available because it hides you from these pesky trackers on the web. I decided it was time to take control of my online life and use Surfshark. If you're interested in doing the same, you can try it yourself with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Go to surfshark.com slash desert for 4 extra months at an unbeatable price. I'm walking this ledge to see if there's anything else around here. I love how they just perfectly built that in to contour around this natural overhang here. You can see it in the back there as well. And then just around the corner, there's, I don't know, a figure. Kind of human-like. Now that is interesting. I don't think I've ever seen a figure quite like that with the pronged feet or tail. It's just along this big cliff band here. So just down from those white figures, I was looking. These look like kind of mud pictographs, almost two people again. And then, yeah, there's definitely an old structure here where you beat down whatever it was. Oh wow, yeah, I just noticed. You can tell that this all was plastered in at one point in time. And this whole back must have been plastered in. And this would have been enclosed. So yeah, maybe, maybe, I don't know. I mean, it's just like endless here. Okay, we've got to make some moves. So I assume the ancient ones would have wanted an easy in and out of the canyon wherever they built. So I think there's like a little drainage here. I imagine that'll lead me into the main canyon that I want to get into. So you can see there was a little bit of snow here recently. It's only hanging in in the north-facing slopes, the slopes that haven't had that south-facing winter sun yet. Top priority for me in here is finding a water source. Yeah, there's little bits of snow here and there. But melting that, you're not going to get a whole lot of water. I'm hoping to find a pothole or something that maybe has had a little snow melt and is full of water now. It's been such a dry winter in a lot of parts of the southwest this year. It's just, it's honestly pretty sad. If we don't get some serious rain and snow to finish out the winter and early spring, we're going to be hurting. Oh yeah, this is, this is what I want. The problem is, is it completely frozen solid. It is. That could pose a problem. Let's see if I can break through anywhere. Obviously I don't want to go for a wet shoe. Oh man, that is, that is hard as a rock. I need like a chisel. So this is all in the shade, that's why it's frozen solid. This is what I was hoping for. It's not much. But look, I could pull this ice out and I could melt that. For sure there's a little water under there. That's going to probably have a lot of silt in it. So that is good. The problem is, I mean, I want to make it a couple more miles before we set up camp. So, I don't know, I might go a little further and see if it seems like it all dries up. Maybe I'll have to come back here and load up. This pothole's nice. What I'm doing, in case I do have to come back here, is I'm clearing out a spot of this ice. Holy moly, look at that. Because once I clear it out, it's going to get really murky. And that's not good for filtering water. But if I have to go down a ways and come back, hopefully this sediment has settled by then. If I can avoid melting ice, I'd prefer that. It's just, it's faster, I don't waste a bunch of fuel. Get down here. Yeah, looks like it. It's kind of icy and sketchy down there. There's a pour-over right here, meaning where this canyon sort of just drops off. That looks, that could be a challenge. Let me see here. Oh, can I get down? Surely the ancients had a plan for this. Some way around it. Oh yeah, I think with a little creativity. Let's see. So it's not ideal. I'm actually surprised that there's a semi-impassable pour-over here. This is another little finger here. It is doable, with a few caveats. So you should always bring a little piece of webbing or rope with you if you're going into an unknown canyon. I know that, I forgot it today. As I was driving this morning, I was like, wait a minute, shoot. And I said, well, you know, probably won't need it. I do need it. Webbing can be used for all sorts of things, a hand line. What I need it today is to lower my pack off this otherwise maybe 8 to 10 foot drop that I'm going to try to do. So my makeshift plan, we'll see how it goes, is I put that big juniper log down there. I'm going to see if I can kind of lower my bag. My main concern, I just don't want to damage all the camera gear in here by dropping it so far. So this is it. Thankfully, the bottom is pretty flat, or there's no way I'd drop off this. Jumping in canyon country is not great because a twisted ankle out here could be a bad deal. But I think I sort of tested. You see there's a little knob here and a knob there. And I believe with my wingspan, I can put sort of opposing pressure with each hand on that and lower myself over the edge to where maybe I'm only dropping like 5 feet or something. That's the hope, at least, if all goes well. I never really liked jumping off of roofs as a kid. This is kind of like that, except higher consequences maybe. We're going to go full send. This is my main concern. I'm thinking maybe I padded in here with some various things. This could be an epic fail. I am fully prepared for that. So what I'm thinking, obviously I don't want this to pull me over. Kids, don't leave your webbing at home. I also got to make sure it doesn't land in my... Okay, that was a pretty good landing. What I need to make sure is it doesn't land in my zone or else we got problems. Honestly, that little piece of wood, I don't want to roll on that. Well, I'm fully committed at this point. I don't really know how to film this. We'll see. It's hanging out of my shirt. So here's my strategy. Get all my skin contact that I can. That really wasn't too bad. Thank you, piece of wood. Nothing but shenanigans, my friends. I'm glad you were with me on the drop. I could feel your presence. Friction is your friend when it comes to down climbing sandstone. And now, kind of got to find water down here, don't we? Because I'm certainly not going to climb up that. Flash flood debris out the wazoo here. Oh, there's a big pothole down there. It is completely frozen solid. Okay. I mean, it's going to keep me alive. Oh yeah, look at that. That's good water for the canyons. Look at this lighting. It's gorgeous down here. Oh, look at this. There's a bunch of petroglyphs up here. The light is harsh on them right now, but it can still make them out. That's definitely an atlatl. That might be two. It looks a little different than I normally see them, but that's got to be one. It's kind of interesting. Here's the sun, the last glimpses. The winter solstice wasn't that long ago, about a month. It makes me wonder. I don't know. It's just like this is the last wall here to get sunlight. I wonder if there was some kind of winter solstice meaning. Look at this. That is a strange creature. I don't know. It's almost got bird feet. I don't know. I don't even know. I don't even want to try to explain that. I mean, surely there has to be some meaning to the fact that every single canyon wall is dark, except, bam, right here. You never know that, except I just happen to walk by it at this time of day as the sun is setting. What an afternoon. I don't want to leave this last little bit of sun, but we've got to go find a campsite. Gosh, it's like infinite out here. That's interesting. I mean, there's definitely showing atlatl and probably a sheep, I guess. Dang, I don't want to stop. I'm sad it's winter and we're running out of daylight. First piece of pottery of the trip. It's little. It's kind of a random spot. Maybe there's something up here. Oh, yeah, there's got to be something up here. There's a bunch of little sherds now. Yeah, there's flakes and broken tools starting to pop up. There's definitely something up this slope. I came in a little high. Let me walk around. Here's some, looks like grinding troughs of some kind. Look at this over here. There's more corn cobs up in the, right above the doorway. Look at that, that's pretty cool. See the roof construction in here. They were everywhere in here. I got to find camp, though. Holy cow, it just keeps on going. I've got to get dinner. I've got to get camp set up, though. Figure out water. I think this will do. I came over here because if I calculated correctly, I'll get some of the first rays of sunlight here. Yeah, I kind of just stumbled on all that by accident because I came over here, you know, trying to find a spot that would get the first rays of sunlight, and then it was like, bam, bam, bam, bam. I've got to get water figured out, though. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to consolidate water bottles, grab my filter, and let's see what we can find. Actually, I probably better bring my pot, too, in case I've got to melt ice. I'm famished. I need a little snack before the water run. So the last reliable pothole I saw was maybe half a mile up. I'm going to look up a side canyon real quick because if I can avoid a one-mile round-trip hike tonight, I think I'd like that. Let's see if I can make this work. There's water, but if I break this ice and stir up the water too much, it's just going to be a mess. So close. Maybe over here on the edge will work. Fortunately, I'm going to stir up a bunch of the sediment in here. Yeah, I see sand particles frozen there. I was going to say, maybe I'll just melt that and sacrifice some fuel. Frozen fly in your water, anybody? Let's get some layers in. It is getting cold. Even though I'm starving, I wanted to get my tent up so that I could get my sleeping bag out and start to let it fluff up. It's down, and with down, the fluffier it is, the warmer it's going to keep you. Okay, let's get some dinner going. That was not supposed to happen. So we are doing a chili tonight. Normally, I would bring something more backpacking-friendly, but the grocery store didn't have it. By backpacking-friendly, I mean just lightweight, dehydrated. This is a can of chili. We're going to spice it up a little bit with some rice, Fritos, cheese, and I'm supposed to do some veggies with it. I am feeling too lazy. It is late. I want to eat. This carrot will have to wait until the morning. A little Verde hot sauce. It's not gourmet, but pretty darn good on a cold night. Things are freezing. It is dropping quick. The water bottle is already starting to freeze up there. I'm going to eat this and hop in bed. See you guys in the morning.