Mike P.’s Utah Adventure

An awesome side product of this site has been meeting people from around the world with a shared passion for southern Utah. Over the years I’ve chatted with numerous hikers and helped brainstorm ideal routes for them based on their experience and desires. One such person I chatted with extensively was Mike Plaiss from the Chicago area who was planning his first major Utah adventure. His goal was a 10-day thru-hike navigating some tough terrain in Capitol Reef and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in the fall of 2016. He’d hiked in Utah before, but nothing of this magnitude, so it was a pretty ambitious plan. We chatted about routes, water availability, gear, and more. The trip didn’t completely go as he had hoped, but it was still quite the success. It’s apparent that Mike knows one of the most important rules of long-distance hiking: Have a great plan, and know when (and how) to deviate from that plan if necessary. Good job, Mike!

Mike recently finished a video of his adventure. Check it out here:

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5 Comments

  1. I really enjoyed watching and listening. What a trip. Thanks for sharing

  2. Really enjoyed watching the video. I wish I had the stamina to do this myself now but I’ve just let the years pass me by. I’m okay with settling for truck camping and an occasional motel room now and then just to get to experience the slots and fabulous views of southern Utah. Thanks again guys for sharing one of the most beautiful parts of the U.S.

  3. Snack: “Tastes about what it looks like” 100% true! Does the job though.
    Hope Mike has caught his breath since.
    Thank you (from France) Mike and Jamal for sharing this.
    Cheers!

  4. Hey Jean, this is Mike. I ran into a guy named Luke as I was entering the halls creek narrows. He took the bypass because he wanted to hike the narrows from south to north. I was coming in from the south and we bumped into each other right at the entrance. We took turns filming each other for our various projects. He also took most of the still pictures of me in the narrows. After the narrows he gave me his water filter (not sure why, he just said he didn’t need it anymore) and we went our separate ways.

  5. Great stuff! Was Mike alone, because there is some movement of the camera while he is walking away from it at 10:19 to 10:37?