Day 33, 20.06 miles

We woke up nice and early at 4am as planned. The wind was still whipping and it was actually a little cold! We knew that wouldn’t last for long so we got a move on!

I broke a new record today! We broke camp at 4:45am, which isn’t the earliest I’ve left, but while trying to do the 10milesx10am, we ended up doing 13.4 miles by 9:15am!! That’s 3 miles per hour all morning! 

By 9am it was already pretty dang hot, so we were glad to see the bridge! We went straight for the upper left side portion of the under bridge. This is a nice flat area where the shade stays in one place for the most part since you are closer to the bridge ceiling instead of being down below and having to move every 20 minutes with the shade. I remembered this place from last time, so Julian and I made sure to claim it! There were a few other hikers down below.

Hikertrash 

We both napped for about 2 hours. And then around 11am, we both woke up at the same time. Just then, we heard this strange noise that sounded like a cat purring but also kind of like a bird. We looked at each other and then up where the noise was coming from. About 15 feet away there were “rafters” going under the bridge. We saw what we initially thought were kittens. There were 4 little cute feline kittens, and we were surprised they were living in there.

Then, Julian (who has slightly better eyesight than me), exclaimed that there was a larger cat behind them! It was either a bobcat or a mountain lion!! And we were sleeping 15 feet from her nest for 2 hours!!!

You can see a kitten/cub on the right side

Momma


Momma

!!

These pictures are very zoomed in, and I didn’t want to use the flash to disturb them, so I edited them on my phone to brighten/wash out.

For awhile we didn’t know the true size of the momma and there was some speculation that it might be a bobcat and not a mountain lion. As we were leaving, Julian spotted a bobcat cub. The more I look at the pictures we caught of the mother cat, the more I think it was a mountain lion, although it’s hard to tell.. what do you think?

Picture is from the internet

We had rested under the bridge for about 6 hours total (it was piping hot out in the sun). By the time 3pm rolled around, Julian and I were getting antsy to leave. Some other hikers had night hiked and were trying to catch up on sleep by nightfall to continue nighthiking, we as we just had a long, early day and just needed a nap. We headed back out into the blazing sun!

Looked deceptive cloudy far away, but we were walking in some hot hot heat and 100% exposure!!

Climbing up and up!

And up!!

After 6.5 more super tough miles, we had made it all the way across the desert floor and up into the hills on the other side! That wasn’t so bad eh? We descended into the beautiful Tylerhouse Canyon for the night, which has a tiny little trickle stream flowing through. Claire and I recuperated here after giving windy night hiking a try two years ago!

There’s about 25 miles left to get to Tehachapi where I will be taking either a couple neros if not a zero. It’s a really long waterless stretch tomorrow, so we’re not going to push the big miles if we don’t feel like it. We’ll most likely arrive in Tehachapi early Thursday morning. Wow I am TIRED!! Good night!

Thanks for reading!!