Day 39, 21.15

I didn’t sleep very good last night as the winds were whipping through and it was a very hot night. I kept waking up sweating really bad but was too lazy to get out of my sleeping bag. I checked my phone frequently and it seemed like 10pm, 12am, and 2am all took forever to arrive. I probably only slept a couple hours. When I checked and it was just before 5am, I got up.

I knew there was a big hill to climb and wanted to get it out of the way before the sun came in too hot. I thought it would’ve rained last night because of the thunder and dark skies above but it didn’t and everything was dry. It was a beatiful warm morning and the wind died down soon after I left camp.

At camp and the dirt road crossing

Early scenes 

We climbed up over 1600 for I’m the first 3.5 miles, and then had a very easy rest of the day! Again, “only” needing to go ~20 miles, AND getting an early start, led to a slower, more comfortable pace, and a good size siesta.

Today Julian and I leapfrogged with Keglegs all day. She’s the only one around us that started on the same day as me, except for Mougs (Chris). I didn’t meet her until Big Bear, but Julian had hiked with her a bit in the beginning of the trail. She happens to be doing the same resupply strategy as Julian and I, and we might group up for the High Sierra snow travel, as it’s ideal to go with more than just two people when you’re crossing icy passes and treacherous high waters as we might be experiencing. We’d also like to catch up to Joe Solo and Turbo Stash and head through with them as well!

There were so many wildflowers today,lots of purple and yellows! That mixed with an older burn area made for some beautiful scenery!

Lupine :)

My favorite of the day :)

When we were about 6 more miles from Walker Pass Campground where we had planned to camp, and the highway that leads to Lake Isabella, Julian was able to contact his brother Josh who had decided to come out and meet us for the night and the next day! It was such a great surprise! 

Because of the early start, it was only 2:45pm and we were nearing the campground! There was no service st the pass, so Julian, Keglegs and I decided to hitch into Lake Isabella to make it easier for Josh to meet us. We only had to wait ~15 minutes for a hitch. This is actually quite good as this is by far the hardest hitch of the hike so far!

We got dropped at Taco Bell and got down on a little horrible fast food before Josh and friends arrived from their 3 hour drive from LA.

Our ride! 

That’s Keglegs standing on the left of our ride: a 1986 VW vanagon. Josh had taken the old gyal, (running on hopes and dreams), almost 200 miles to come hang out! They had to stop a couple times to let it cool off and not explode, haha. On top of that, we off-roaded down a BLM land road to get to some free camping along the Kern River for the night.

Off-roading!

Paul, Daniel, Julian, with brother Josh

Josh and his friends, the twins, Paul and Daniel are so cool! They brought a bunch of food and beers, and we hung out until late in the night, swapping stories of our childhoods and hometowns, and just having great conversation! I set up my tent in a nice flat spot and can hear the river, (it’s almost too loud), very close by. It’s been a late night, gotta hit the hay!

Thanks for reading!!

Day 38, 21.48 miles

After yesterday’s drizzly start, the nice warm weather today was more than welcome! It felt good to do a “short” day yesterday, and I felt pretty good this morning leaving camp. We climbed out of the spring area and soon came across lovely boulder fields. I climbed to the top of a big tower boulder and hung out with Raider for a few minutes. (I met Raider at the top of Jacinto). From one of the lookouts you could catch a glimpse of Mt. Whitney!!

Such a beautiful morning! 

Raider in the distance

You can’t see it in this picture but Whitney was visible

Lupine amongst a burn

We soon dropped out of the boulder area and down into the drier/shrub filled desert landscape again. It’s still about 20° cooler than 2016, which I’m super grateful for. I didn’t actually mind the change! 

I REALLY didn’t mind the trailmagic we ran into at Kelso Valley Road. Yeti, a former thru-hiker hat his large custom Jeep Rubicon rig all set up and was giving out hot dogs and beer and fresh fruit! I forgot to take a picture while I was there but I was so thankful!

Looking back at the mountains we descended from

Desert cows!!

Julian’s phone booth

As they day grew hotter, we came across some dirt OHV roads and decided to take a break under some shade provided by a healthy stall of Joshua trees. I never though I’d say this, but I “only” planned to do 20 miles today, so I was able to rest for an hour and a half, and even managed to get a text out to my bebita!

Desert siesta

As I was leaving the Germans caught up!!

L to R: Isaac, Chainsaw and Michael

I hadn’t seen them for almost a week, so it was cool to catch up. Unfortunately, I had to get back into the heat if I was going to make my 20 on what was now becoming a slow and lazy day...

Got lucky with afternoon cloud-cover!

Mougs contemplating with a great view after a super big climb

I know I always say “The morning was beautiful”... Well today, the afternoon definitely took the cake!

My favorite pic of the day

After about 9 more miles from my early afternoon siesta under the Joshua trees, I got to camp, which is also a water cache, which is also stocked! We even saw one of the people maintaining the cache come and add more water. I think everyone had been rationing their water all day just in case there was none here and we needed to make 20+ more miles to Walker Pass. I’m sure all the hikers were relieved. 

As I was setting up my tent near the water cache, I was hearing some crazy thunder northbound on trail. 

Doesn’t look like much but it’s rumbling up there

As I’m writing this (about 7:30pm), I can here infrequent rain pattering on my rainfly. It’s already super windy and I think we may just be in for a pretty wet and windy night! Just 20.5 miles to Walker Pass Campground tomorrow, then into Lake Isabella to pick up packages and resupply on Tuesday!

Thanks for reading!!

Day 37, 16.50 miles

Blegh this morning was so cold! Overnight a crazy huge cloud/mist had come over the whole area. I was glad I set up my rainfly last night. Yesterday was a huge day, so naturally, I slept in and didn’t leave camp until ~7:45! New record for longest sleep-in!

The day started, (and mainly remained), as depicted in the photo above. It was a long, slow going, uphill climb with wet grass all over soaking my legs and freezing cold feet for half the day. I only took 2 pictures before noon, because there was really nothing to see..

Blegh..

Ok, maybe there was one exciting thing in the first half of the day...

Mile 600 Woo-Hoo!!!

Two miles after Julian snapped this picture of me, we rolled into Robin Bird Spring. It was there that we saw a bunch of other hikers that we had met yesterday. It was still so cold and miserable in the clouds, almost noon. I had planned to make a very short stop at the water source, but soon a fire was being made and I absolutely HAD to stay! 

Starting far right in the picture above and moving clockwise:

Mougs (I met him as Chris on day one of the trail!), Julian, Tumbleweed, the two sets of legs are a couple from Portland who’s names I forgot), Huck (in the green), Squirrel, and Stallion. 

We took off our stinky shoes to try and dry out our stinky wet socks. Mougs got his too close and burnt a nice hole in one sock! Julian had some meltage on the side of one of his shoes. We barbecued Slim Jim’s, gummi-sharks, and Starburts. The large party eventually hiked off together and Julian and I stayed behind with the couple from Portland for a few more minutes by the fire and to completely douse it upon leaving.

Mougs socks were evaporating 

Slim Jim roast

I cannot wait...

It was very very cold once we started moving again (compared to the warmth of the fire). We climbed up and up and eventually burst out of the clouds! I was so happy, I thought we would be in it all day!!

We got to our next water source, Lander’s Spring, theoretically the last water for 42 miles... There are two fairly well maintained water caches, and in between each is a water source off-trail where seepages can be accessed by digging. Im not going to rely on either water cache, but at least I have the seepages as back ups. I also only have a max capacity of 4 liters. Digging for dirty pooled water isn’t my first choice, but we’ll have to wait and see what tomorrow brings...

Leaving Lander’s Spring Julian and I followed an OHV trail that looked like it headed back towards the trail, instead of backtracking the 0.3 miles to meet back up with the PCT. (Yes, I’m THAT lazy). We were going to just camp at Landers Spring since it was already late in the afternoon, but found a sweet spot just off the OHV road before it met back up with the PCT.

We decided that a “short” day today would be fine. We have about 42 miles to Walker Pass where we’ll spend the day in Lake Isabella (32 miles West from the trail) to resupply, and then head back out. This way we can hike ~20 each of the next two days and then hitch in Tuesday morning, giving us plenty of time to get to town and do errands and get back out to trail!

Thanks for reading!!

Day 36! 26.45 miles!!

I woke up today around 5am on the nice comfy bed in Ryan and Rachel’s “library” room. I was suuuuuuper tired, but also excited to hit the trail again! Rachel had gone to Dunkin’ Donuts and bought us boys all 4 donuts each!! I tried to go for it, but I was only able to scarf down 3 maple bars. After thanking her, we were on our way as Ryan drove us to the trailhead on his way to work.

The trail followed highway 58 for a while, going east paralleling it for what seemed like a while but was probably only a mile or two..

Julian

Rocking his new shirt!

The trail soon split off from the highway and went pretty steeply right up the canyon side. Up and up and up we went. It was very very windy and I had decided to start the day in shorts (actually, that’s all I have), and my short sleeve shirt. Brrr!!

Climbing out and away from the highway

After about 6 miles of climb and brutal wind, the trail finally started turning shrubby and the winds died down as we left the canyon side and started traversing the usual hills up and down.

The trap soon joined a road which we followed for around 5 miles, and eventually we were snaking our way back through lines of windmills. I thought we were done with these things!!

So open today!

Our first water source, Golden Oak Spring, was over 16 miles away and we got there just in time for lunch!

Yum!! Appetizing! 

(Jk, there was a clean spring trickle feeding this trough. We did not drink this water)

We took a pretty long break here, until about 3pm, and decided that we could do the next 10 miles rollercoastering up and down out of some wondybcanyons and landing us in a nice, tree’d and sheltered campground.

Beautiful!

Man, zero days are great! I should take them more often so I can feel fresh and keep beating my longest day records the next day! 26.45 miles today, Woo-hoo! Julian and I feel pretty dang good! His foot was hurting in the beginning of the day, and my old blister location threw me for a loop and I thought for a second I was getting another in the same spot. But as we went on those pains went away and we did a solid huge day!

It’s amazing on a personal level to see what my body is physically capable of. This is the longest mileage I’ve ever hiked in one day, and we didn’t even push ourselves too hard, get up too early, or even hike too late! We did about 7am-6:30pm with a big break in the middle. We aren’t silly enough to try and push 30+ mile days right now, we know what our bodies can handle and we’re also not in a huge rush or anything, as our pace is quite fast right now. However, it’s exciting to know that at least a few times on the trail (probably in Oregon), I’ll be doing a few 30 mile days! 

Anyways, super excited, super tired, super thankful and blessed. Thanks for reading everybody :)

Day 35, Zero Day

Started today off with strawberry pancakes!! :) Yummmm!! Ryan had gone to work and Julian and I slept in. When we woke up, Rachel was whipping up some great pancakes, they were so good! (Were so spoiled!) 

We spent the morning catching up on phone things, like deleting the Southern California maps and downloading the Sierra maps. (The Southern California map section ends in Tehachapi). That felt very satisfying! Then I shared my loose Soerra resupply plan with Julian since we’ll most likely be hiking together at that point and I’m a little more familiar with that section of the trail since I have it a go in 2016.

We headed out to the Big 5 sporting goods store so Julian could buy a new shirt (his ripped in the back), and so that I could buy some more sunscreen. Then we had a big lunch at Del Taco!

Sporting Ryan’s shorts!

I also hit the Dollar General Market to but just a couple more food items for the next 5 day stretch. Speaking of food, here’s mine:

~5 days of food, most of which came from Claire and my mom! Thanks so much for your packages! :)

Ryan and Rachel’s house

After lunch and errands it was time to relax HARD! I took a nice nap, (of course), talked to Claire, and soon, it was time to think about dinner! What else is there in the world to think about besides hiking and eating?! 

When Ryan came home the two offered us their bikes to use since we wanted to go check out a cool sushi place about 2 miles away. It was so great to turn the 40 minute walk into a 10 minute bike ride! 

Sorry for the red lines, stupid front camera!

Sweet bike bath, “Look Ma, no hands!”

Well, the sushi place had a super long wait and we were really hungry, so we went to TK’s Pizza instead! It was there we ran into another hiker we had met near Wrightwood named Drippy. We also saw Joseph! I ate A LOT!

Huge salad, peanut butter milk stout

Garlic chicken pesto and spinach

After eating so much and being so full, we had to bike it off!

Sweet bike path that leads right to Ryan’s!

We had a great rest day, our bodies are feeling great, and we’re excited to hit the trail tomorrow! Ryan is going to drop us off at the trailhead on his way to work before 6:45am! So great! Less than two weeks until the Sierra!!

Thanks for reading!