We got started late today. We needed to plan for a 42.5 mile waterless stretch that would start tomorrow.
The trail today was pretty ordinary: Rolling hills of desert shrubs, grasses, and succulents, with a few pine trees and long views.
We’d been noticing things that looked like balloons attached to power lines.
We guessed they were probably there to make the power lines more visible to aircraft. We had speculated on what they were made of, and what they looked like up close.
We went through an area that had burned, and that re-introduced us to an old friend:
We also passed the 600 mile marker.
The heat was strong, but there were two springs on the trail today. The first was Robin Bird Spring, which had a veritable colony of hikers resting near it, enjoying the easy access to water. I’d run out of water a few miles early, and eagerly drank a liter as soon as I could treat it.
After filling up, we headed out, and almost immediately crossed a dirt road with a van on it. The van contained a trail angel named Siri. We chatted with him about the hiking trails of his native Norway, and he gave me an Orange Fanta and some Oreos. He also mentioned that there were large water caches at miles 615 and 630, which would make the coming miles much more manageable.
After another dry stretch of trail, we made it to our destination for the night, Landers Camp, which was a campsite with a spring nearby. The spring flowed fast with cool, clear water, and tasted delicious. I filled up to my maximum capacity (6 liters), and didn’t look forward to carrying all that weight up the desert hills tomorrow.
The campground was an overused drive-in site, but tonight there were only a few PCT hikers and nobody else. It was quiet, and we were able to get good rest.
The only signs of overuse near us were piles of shotgun shells, the remains of a blown-up mannequin, a sombrero, and cans of grape soda. Which sounds like quite a birthday party.
We went to sleep, to start the long dry stretch tomorrow.
Some pictures of today’s trail:
Amazing to see all of these pictures of the south end of the Central Valley–you’re seeing parts of California that not many people ever get to see!
It was an interesting place. I’ve also taken some road trips down here, and there were a lot of interesting landmarks here that you wouldn’t see anywhere else. E.g. Salvation Mountain, virtually untouched gold rush towns, East Jesus, the Salton Sea, etc. None of them would exist in a place where the property was valuable.