I'm standing on the mud flat that surrounds Crater Island, Utah (30 miles northeast of Wendover), pulling a home-made handcart loaded with my camping gear.

My smile is a put-on. In truth, I was miserable. The mud was too wet and soft, making forward progress very difficult, illustrated better in two other photos. After two miles of suffering from gummed up tires, I realized the futility of the exercise and returned to my campsite.

The handcart is basically a shallow box mounted on a smaller box. Attached to the underside of the smaller box is the axle and wheels of my hand truck. The long handles are 1x4s screwed to the upper box and dowels attached to them with U-bolts.

A home-made waist harness is attached to the box with black webbing so I could comfortably pull the cart, but it didn’t work. Walking while wearing the harness imparted a jerky pulling motion that was very annoying.

Equipment carried on the initial hike was a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, ground sheet, camping chair, first aid kit, miscellaneous tools, camping stove, freeze-dried meals, sandwiches, energy bars, four gallons of water, and an inflated spare tire.

Joe Tripod, who accompanied me on this Trek from Hell, ignored my suffering to concentrate on his Motionless Mission on Mud. Geo-tagging is approximate.

Two weeks later I repeated the hike with two changes to the design: I left the waist harness at home and added a crossbar at the ends of the handles. Both changes made pulling or pushing the cart much easier. I was surprised to learn that pushing---with the cart in front of me---was easier than pulling it.