Day 177, Monday, November 28

Today I first went over to Badwater flats. Badwater is the huge salt flat that I’d initially associated with the park. I figured it was just going to be a huge featureless table of salt, desolately dry and unimpressive. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! The salt crystals grow in a multitude of intricate forms and are actually covering a large area of wet mud. I thought it was beautiful. After going to the Badwater flats, I decided to go hiking up a slot canyon, Sidewinder Canyon. I didn’t hike fully up Sidwinder because I went way up a tributary canyon. The tributary was very narrow and slotted and a riot to hike because of multiple technical walls I had to climb to get to the end of the tributary canyon. Several of the walls were more than 10 feet tall and I had to grapple my way up small outcroppings to get over the obstacles.