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!!