The night doesn’t provide any rain to test our new tent, but it is comfortable and the double doors are great. Today Ann’s navigation instincts are correct, and we pass a wash I think might the right one. We do try another that is just too small before reaching the obviously correct Blue Cut Wash, where we stop and make blueberry oatmeal.

We have to rely on the route description again to pick which washes to go up. Pass side washes, take the right forks of the main wash, etc. Blue Cut canyon is narrower than Pushawalla, with some strange stacked-up rock formations here and there on the sides. Blue Cut Pass is long and gradual. On the other side the only description left in the book is, “follow the base of the mountains back to the road.” To me, the base is a wash by definition, so I just follow the biggest wash down. It does eventually take us away from the hills though, and Ann uses the GPS receiver to get a heading back toward the mountains to the car. We go cross-country until we would have to climb over the ridge to continue, at which point we go around and find the road.