Memories from May 28

Last night a horse rider seems to have pulled in to the Walker Pass Camp Ground.

Lots of pretty during morning’s hike. The climb out of Walker Pass is infamous for being hot but it was fine at sunrise.

According to some carefully arranged sticks, I passed the 25% mark of the trail.

While taking a siesta at the second crossing of Spanish Needle Creek which, I saw the thru-rider who came in last night. It was really cool to see a horse on the trail.

With the late afternoon light softly irradiating the clouds over a valley with multiple layers if ridge line running in to it, this view was my favorite of the PCT so far. My phone’s camera couldn’t capture the effect at all much less the feeling so I took a bunch of photos. Here are two.

Memories from May 27

I got up early to beat the heat and passed Claudia while she was breaking camp was I hit the trail. Despite being desert and largely exposed, the weather has been relatively cool, which has been really nice.

The trail joined a dirt road through a rolling meadow of shoulder high sage and I took a mid-morning break to mix up 2 liters of milk and drink it since I’m well ahead of my one liter of water per five miles supply.

Continuing down the road, I found a missed connection on the sign where the PCT turned off. I wound up meeting the Ramón it mentions at Walker Pass that night.

I saw an rock which looked like it had been sliced by another rock and was going to slide off.

I like these red ground cover plants because they paint the ground red which is so different from then typical greens and browns.

As seen here.

There was a particularly informative trail sign. It’s uncommon but not rare to find signs with their text worn off.

I got to the Walker Pass Camp Ground which marks the end of the 42 mile waterlesss stretch before the heat of the day. There was a water cache and a trail angel had dropped off bread (yes, multiple loafs of plain white bread is a wonderful treat when you’re used to tortillas), donuts, beer, and soda. The actual water source is a short walk away but it was really nice not to have make it.

Sitting on a shaded bench at the Walker Pass water cache, I passed most of the afternoon talking with other hikers as they trickled in. There was a quartet doing a Warrior Hike who were there when I showed up along with Gone With The Wind and Druid. I forget how we got to talking about software engineering but both Gone With The Wind and Druid are a programmer and a software tester respectively.

When I last called home, mom requested more info on my gear so here’s a picture if what it looks like when I cowboy camp. The hiking poles are just holding the sleeping bag down because it’s so light that soft breeze will move it. The orange sleeping pad under is 3.5 inches thick and weighs 17oz. It’s the one piece of gear which I’ve opted for a significantly heavier option for the sake of comfort. I like sleeping. The ground cloth is an 0.7mil painter’s drop cloth. I want to swap it for a piece of Tyvek when I get the chance.

Memories from May 26

The trail out of Lander’s camp was well decorated though perhaps not with the same quality of curation that the trail in seemed to be.

The land grew drier, though in fits and spurts and the views eventually began to remind me of the cover are on sci-fi novels.

Took a siesta from about 2 to 4 in the shade of a large Joshua tree.

Passed a water cache. There are supposed to be three in this 42 mile waterless stretch but I’m carrying 8 liters of water so I didn’t take any.

Camped just at the top of a hill where a rock outcropping sheltered my spot from the wind. On the way up the hill I’d decided to take the first campsite I found after the climb. Unfortunately an older German lady named Claudia had had the same idea but fortunately there was a small site where I could cowboy camp a few yards behind hers. Over dinner I learned that she’s been traveling for the last three years living out of a modified Toyota 4×4.

Memories from May 25

Today looked like this until shortly after noon.

Everything looked ghostly. Condensation would collect in trees and cause small showers beneath them and my shoes acquired a thin layer of mud. The grass and fox tails which line the trail were we as with dew so my lower pant legs became damp as well. This seems like a foretaste of what the trail will be like in Washington where it’s sometimes jokingly referred to as a hiker wash.

Since the air was cool, and the ground offered few good places to sit, I walked continuously until the snacks I had stashed on the outside if my pack ran out and I had to sit down to eat something. Before then…

I passed the House of Bear which had a notice posted about armed surveillance. I thought it looked abandoned and was a ways off the trail so I stopped to take this picture. Instead, a few hundred yards up road, I passed a moderate size cabin shrouded in fog like something from a horror movie. I didn’t stop for a picture that time.

I did stop to get a picture of the 600 mile marker.

And when I had finally stopped to eat sitting on across a drier section of the trail, a few rain drops fell so I dug my poncho-tent out of my pack and through it over me. A minute or two later, the sky started to clear.

The 5-ish miles into Landers Camp were gorgeous, perhaps the prettiest on the trail so far. There were no scenic views, instead it felt like I was walking though someone’s garden. Alternatively it might have been the floor if a well decorated aquarium because of all the colors and sandy quality if the soil. I don’t know that pictures capture the effect properly but here’re a few.

At one point I crossed Puite Road where the Kern County Sheriff’s office has put a questionnaire for PCT hikers about encounters with dirt bikers (dirt bags?).

Landers Camp itself seems largely designed for ATV type use and had warnings about helmet requirements and spark suppressors. The spring at the camp is flowing wonderfully so I used my left over water to mix up about 64oz if milk.

I shared a large campsite with Druid who I’d been leap frogging with for most of the day. He’s not particularly talkative but is one of the few southerners I’ve met on the trail. We were joined by Icebath who is hiking a section missed during last year’s thru-hike. We had a fun conversation about a number of subjects including US education (Icebath is a teacher) and intellectual independence.

Memories from May 24

The title says it all.

Besides that, I crossed a very different type of trail first thing in the morning.

Then saw some bees.

And then took a wrong turn. This is not the trail but I didn’t realize that for another quarter mile. The trail is about 15 feet away but over the side of the wash so I couldn’t see it but close enough that the GPS said I was on the trail the first two times I checked.

While running some last minute Internet errands with the cell service available from the overlook where the first picture in this post was taken, a guy named Yard Sale caught up to me. His trail name comes from his pack.

I walked with him for most of the day which meant it was easy going.

I’m trying to eat as much of my food as I can to reduce pack weight. I almost ate today’s allocation if food but it appears that yet again, I’ve over packed food.

Memories from May 23

Tehachapi is the last major town on my trip until South Lake Tahoe over 500 miles away. While I’ll resupply in a couple of places, those are done by mailing boxes to a resort or small store because none of the places I’ll pass is large enough to have a post office. Also, there has been a ridiculous amount of support the last week or so days: the Saufley’s, the Anderson’s, and Hikertown. I haven’t had to carry more than several days if food or more than four liters of water. That changes when I leave Tehachapi today for the about 140 miles to Kennedy Meadows. The next stretch opens with 28 waterless miles and will contain a waterless stretch 42 miles long. With 7 days of food and about six liters of liquid (I bought two 64oz cranberry juices so I would have enough water capacity) in my pack, it’s distinctly heavy; it feels like playtime is over. I had to move the water to the outside mesh pockets because there wasn’t enough room inside with all the food.

With that mindset change looming, today was spent careening through last minute errands. Get enough toilet paper. Buy water bottles (the cranberry juice). Ship the old tarp and poncho home. Download the latest water report. I managed to catch up on the blog, have breakfast with Team Bizzle (first meal in Tehachapi at a dining establishment), and call home which meant I really did get through everything before Dog Bite picked me up at 4pm for a ride back to the trail.

Another high point was that most of Team Bizzle went to the thrift store to get clothes to wear while doing laundry. Many photos were taken. They’re planning on sending them ahead to use at every resupply.

Starting in the late afternoon from Willow Springs Road, I walked though a windy windmill farm, eventually finding a relatively sheltered place about a mile short of highway 58.

I ran across the most interesting water cache container I’ve seen yet (if you can’t see in the picture, it used to hold wine… if only).

Memories from May 22

I slept in 🙂 Having  four walls is somehow more conducive to that than the three wall pitch I’d used with my tarp before getting a poncho-tent yesterday.

It took a long time to run all my errands today because the city is so spread out.
* started walking to the laundromat but got picked up by Dog Bite the same trail angel who’d given me a ride from the post office yesterday. There were already 4 people in the 3 back seats, so I sat on the passenger’s lap. A police car was across an intersection from us but didn’t do anything.
* Got 6 days of food from the Dollar General. I have one left in my foodbag. Kennedy Meadows is about 140 miles
* Also got a big bag of knock off Captain Crunch and a gallon of milk this wound up being my sustenance for the day
* went to the laundromat but didn’t have enough cash to get quarters
* went to the Albertson’s to get a bowl for cereal. Their ATM wasn’t BofA.
* met Calamity and made a plan to get a ride back to the airport together
* went to Save Mart which had a BofA ATM and remembered to get Duck Tape which I haven’t had so far
* went back to the laundromat and did  laundry while wearing my rain clothes commando so I could wash everything. Also ate cereal from an Albertson’s deli soup bowl and got in a conversation with a local. So hikertrash.
* met Calamity and called Dog Bite to see if he’s give us a ride. Got a message machine so called a friend about scheduling in the Sierras so I can plan resupplies while Calamity looked for flip flops
* tried calling Dog Bite again but got a message machine so went to Starbucks to poach WiFi. Ran in to Jan and Julie. It was good to see them after yesterday’s post office race. Decided to try Zero Day Resupply (Amazon for backpacking resupplies) instead of buying food in town and shipping it because the grocery stores and post office in Tehachapi are more than two miles apart and it would take several trips. Instead to arrange 3 resupplies in less than an hour and a half. Take that Tehachapi city planning.
* Give up on getting a ride from Dog Bite. Walk back to the airport. Then walk to Home Depot to see if I can get Tyvek for a new ground cloth (I’ve been using a poncho as a ground cloth but my new poncho is my tent). A trail angel I’d seen at Starbucks saying it was his day off of trail angeling asks if I want a ride.
* Home Depot doesn’t sell Tyvek is less than a large roll. I wind up with a .7mil painter’s drop cloth, walk back to camp and cut it down to size. The stuff feels as light as a trash bag. Hope that’s not a problem later

At this point it’s something like 4pm and I still haven’t caught up on my blog, figured out how to fit 7 days if food into my backpack (my backpack is 45 liters and most people have at least 58 liters; REI recommends my pack for weekend trips, not multi-day excursions). I also need to ship home my old tarp and poncho. I don’t have refrigeration for my leftover milk tonight. But Waterboy and Calamity are going to see Jungle Boom in twoish hours so I do the responsible thing and tell them I’m in. Then Team Bizzle shows up (they’d originally planned to arrive tomorrow morning) and hanging out commences. My departure time moves from tomorrow morning to evening.

The Jungle Book was great. It was also nice to see a movie not feeling like hikertrash.

I have been in town 1.5 days and still haven’t eaten at a real restaurant. How did that happen?

Memories from May 21

I detached from Team Bizzle last night since I’m on a slightly faster timeline to get to the Sierras. However, when I broke camp at first light, I found Jan and Julie packing up. They’d gotten in to Hikertown just as I was leaving but had hiked almost to midnight making it an 37 mile day. Leaving people behind on the PCT is no guarantee that you won’t see them again soon. I was hiking slowly through the wind farm and they overtook me though I caught them again when I switch out of my jacket which for some reason put me into go mode.

Sunrise hiking through a wind farm. I saw a lot of windmills today. Not surprisingly, there was a pretty noticeable about of wind.

It turns out Jan had a box at the Tehachapi post office which closed at 2pm. After collecting water in a wash 6 or 7 miles from where we’d slept, it was 8:10am and there were still 16 or 17 miles to go plus a hitch. I had a poncho-tent waiting for me at the same post office and so decided to join the challenge.

The trail was far from flat which is why it had sweeping views like this.

And another wind farm.

But I made it to Willow Springs Road by 12:30pm. The second car to pass gave me a hitch into Tehachapi (thanks Nick and Pam) and so I had my package with an hour to spare.

I had been sitting outside the post office for a few minutes trying to figure out accommodations. Just after I’d decided to camp at the municipal airfield (Best Western, which seemed like a nice idea since I felt like I could barely walk was $99 for a single bed and I didn’t know anyone in town with whom to arrange a room split), a car pulled up, discouraged a hiker, and then shouted if I was going to the airport. Dog Bite, the driver, is a trail angel who spends six weeks a year running something of a shuttle bus route for PCT hikers. This is really nice because whoever did Tehachapi’s urban planning appears not to consider walkability of any importance. In another 15ish minutes I was at a small, well kept, shady, grass park within two hundred yards of a small airstrip trying to decide whether food or rest was a more desperate need. Rest won despite requiring that I read the directions on my new poncho-tent.

After a nap, some food from my food bag, a shower in a retrofitted porta-potty (the water was even warm) and a little socialization with a few hikers I’d met previously, I discovered that Tehachapi had a theater and so decided to catch Captain America: Civil War wearing my long undershirt and rain pants since the nearest laundromat is over two miles away. I am hikertrash. The movie was fantastic. So was the jumbo sized soda.

Memories from May 20.

I was cowboy camped (no tent/tarp) last night. There was a lot of wind. Not having a tent acting like a sail was nice and a sleeping person’s profile is low enough that the logs around my campsite kept the worst of it off me. Shortly before sunrise I was getting a little cold and was considering pitching my tarp but the sky was just beginning to lighten so I just rolled over. I did quit camp a little before the others and enjoyed a gorgeous hike down the hill.

Passing over the last hill before Hikertown I discovered one of the more unexpected dangers of the PCT. Wild animals you say? What about gun toting humans (thankfully out of season).

I only have a picture of the entrance to Hikertown since I only stayed there for the day. A trail angel named Bob has set up his acre-ish sized property with a number of small outbuildings like an old Western town.

Bob has a van that he lends to hikers to resupply at a nearby gas station the middle seat is missing so you can pack more people in. The sliding side door doesn’t close and has to be tied with a pice of rope so it’s not always clear that all those people you stuffed into the van on the way out will make it back.

My credit card came with the mail in the afternoon. I wonder if it’s only in America that having a working credit card is tied to emotional well-being. So much for the PCT being an escape from civilization.

After leaving Hikertown, I unexpectedly found the end of the PCT. Who knew Canada was so close?

The trail follows the aqueduct which, if I understand correctly, carries water from Lake Mead by Las Vegas to LA. It was kind of fun walking along and on top of such a massive piece if engineering.

Aqueduct as a canal.

Aqueduct as a pipe.

Aqueduct as a cement path.

I ran across a guy named Hard Way who I’d heard about while talking to Jetpack while waiting for Team Bizzle at the road to Casa De Luna (the Anderson’s). He seemed like a nice guy and so I walked with him the rest of the way to the next water, passing Team Bizzle camped by the side of the aqueduct. We hiked until 11pm since the road was easy to follow and the moon was bright. I did manage to miss two turns but I blame that on trying to hike without my headlamp. It turns out trail signs are reflective which helps a lot.

There were a lot of people camped by the water spigot since it was the first water in 17 miles since Hikertown and was relatively sheltered from the wind despite the windmills looming above.

Memories from May 19

My credit card is due to show up at Hikertown on May 20th so even if I wanted to rush I couldn’t. That’s a nice place to be since today was pretty hot and frequently windless. The views were nice and pretty much par for the course.

After a stop for water at an off trail guzzler (a large, low metal roof which funnels rain into an underground tank), we siesta’ed under another just a few miles away. The roofs are just high enough to crawl under to get out of the sun.

After an hour or two everyone else got antsy and headed out despite it being the heat of the day (all things considered it wasn’t so hot since we’d just gained enough elevation to drop a few degrees and pick up a light breeze again) but I decided to listen to an audio book since I’m behind on my “reading”.

I left the guzzler around 4pm and joined the others at a camp just on the north side of a ridge which was calm when I arrived but was very windy that night. The clouds didn’t seem to threaten rain but made for some interesting effects with the sun which aren’t really conveyed in this picture.