Month: June 2016

By 5:30, when the rooster woke me up, it was already warm. This didn’t bode well.

But, today was my birthday. And Elizabeth was kind enough to put 35 candles into 2 Hostess cupcakes. No, she didn’t check with the fire department first.

We left Hiker Town, to begin the notorious aqueduct walk across the Mojave floor. It was famed for being the most desert-y part of the PCT’s 700 desert miles: Hot, dry, dusty, monotonous.

This section of the trail (mostly) follows the L.A. aqueduct across the desert. Lest this sound easy, (since aqueducts have water), keep in mind that the aqueduct is almost always covered.

By 7:30 in the morning, it was 85 degrees outside. I realized I was carrying two down jackets now.

We did have good cell phone coverage around here, oddly enough. I tried renting my bear canister (a Bearikade Expedition) while I walked, but the manufacturer’s website didn’t allow me to check out on my phone. I called in, and the owner said he’d just ship it and work out payment later. I hope this goes as planned.

The walk was monotonous and hot, hot, hot. Largely, it was just miles and miles of dirt road like this:

There was the occasional landmark, but not much.

We started guessing at what objects in the distance might be trail magic. None of them were. We found two water caches. They were both empty. There was no solid shade, anywhere.

There was, however, a bit of a breeze. If you’re going to be crossing the Mojave on a 110 degree summer day with no shade, you might as well do it near a wind farm. (Two down jackets are unnecessary, however).

Surprisingly, there were quite a few desert rabbits. Very small, about the size of a softball when rolled up. Too skittish and quick to get a picture of, though.

In early afternoon, we reached a bridge. This bridge was the only good shade on this stretch of trail, so it was a traditional point for hikers to rest during the hottest part of the day. The small bridge had maybe 20 hikers huddled in its small rectangle of shade. As the sun moved, hikers would leave the sunny side and move to the newest part of the bridge’s moving shadow.

I laid down, and on my 35th birthday, took my first nap in the dirt under a bridge.

Later, half awake, I heard someone shouting on top of the bridge. I couldn’t tell what they were saying. Hikers sat up from their naps, looking concerned. Were we trespassing, was it the police? Was a flash flood coming? Had the aqueduct broken?

The shouting became clearer: “It’s the Andersons! The Andersons are here!”

We scrambled up the slope, to the top of the bridge. Terrie Anderson was opening doors on her van to reveal coolers of cold soda, and boxes of pizza. “Now who wants the first sno-cone?” she said, as she produced a sno-cone maker from the passenger seat.

In case you’re wondering, strawberry-lemonade sno-cones served in 110-degree desert heat taste like magic.

Sno-cones, soda, and pizza consumed, we got packed up and left. There was still a ways to go today.

The remainder of the day went directly through the wind farm. It was still well above 100 degrees, but the breeze helped a lot.

Some of the turbines were huge.

We also noticed a shepherd, his sheep, and his dog in the distance.

Finally, we reached our destination for the night: Tylerhorse Canyon, which is a sheltered canyon with a creek running through it.

Many hikers were camped there, and the area was showing signs of overuse, but the limitless supply of water was well appreciated.

In camp, I spilled my water, tore my food bag, realized I’d left my stove fuel and lighter at Hiker Town, and went to sleep, thus ending my birthday.

We woke up and left camp early, so as to avoid as much of the heat of the day as possible. But much to my surprise, the weather remained cool, and the trail took us through tall, shady shrubs, then through a taller, shadier live oak forest.

The temperature and shade were nice, but bugs found them nice too. We were under constant attack by black flies. I ate 4 of them (accidentally).

Water was also still a challenge. Some of the traditional water resources for this section of the trail were dried up or not working. We planned to get water at a cistern called WR502B. Then, this paper towel changed our minds.

On the way to WR505B, we passed mile 500 of our hike. There were several rock sculptures to mark this milestone, each at different spots, depending on how optimistic the artist was.

When we did reach WR505B, it was a cistern designed to collect rainwater off its own roof. There were a lot of dead flies and miscellaneous debris in the collected water, but once filtered, it tasted great.

We continued through the cool live oak forest, and the trail began to descend.

After a while, we were back to unbearable heat in a barren desert.

The heat and the trail’s apparent aimlessness were hard to endure. For distraction, Elizabeth and I sang the entirety of “100 bottles of beer on the wall”, to keep sane, but it only takes about 20 minutes. And it’s a real feat to keep in time when you’re breathing hard, going up a hill.

It would probably take about 280000 bottles of beer to sing through a whole PCT thru-hike.

At long last, we reached a straightaway alongside farmland, meaning we were almost to our destination, the Hiker Town hostel.

Reaching Hiker Town itself was an odd experience. In the middle of the desert, there is a tiny fake-Western town, built specifically for hikers. The owner likes hiking and building things.

We opted to rent a room, for the rather reasonable price of $20. It was also thoroughly decorated.

We took a shuttle to the store and restaurant, and had dinner and resupplied. The restaurant reminded me a bit of Bel-Mateo Bowl’s food — like it might have been frozen until very, very recently. But, it was cheap, plentiful, and caloric.

As for the resupply, peanut M&Ms figure big in my future. But it wasn’t too bad. Tomorrow, we’ll do the most notorious section of the PCT, the walk across the Mojave floor. We’ll see how that goes.

The trail today took is up and down, through desert chaparral.

Our destination for lunch was the Anderson’s house, a couple of trail angels. They were known mainly for their parties each night, but we weren’t going to stay, we just wanted to eat lunch and ask around about the next fire closure, the Powerhouse Fire Closure.

Unfortunately most people there seemed to be planning on hitching around it (and quite a ways past it, to the next trail angel house, called Hiker Town). We weren’t able to find recent information about the alternate.

After lunch and a delicious orange soda, we hiked back to the trailhead.

The alternate was an easy road walk down a hill, then through a small town, past a dried-up lake called Lake Elizabeth. It must not always be dry, since we saw signs prohibiting the use of boats with more than 10HP motors, in front of what was now a dust field.

In town, we had a nice dinner at a roadside restaurant called The Rock, which was made out of stone, because the previous building had burned down. I discovered that orange juice could be even better than orange soda. (And, they served Black Butte Porter, which was nice too).

Back on the road, we passed by several of the town’s attractions.

This section of the road had many bugs. We swatted them every few seconds, and quite often hit them. Sometimes 2 or 3 bugs in one swat.

We turned off the road, and started to head uphill, back towards the PCT. At the next water source (a spring coming out of a hillside), we met a very young thru-hiker, a teenager, who was hiking this section with his younger brother. They had grown up nearby. We noticed they never bothered to swat at the flies.

Unfortunately, by the spring, the bugs changed to mosquitoes, so see hurried on as quickly as possible.

Up the hill a bit farther was Upper Shake Campground, our destination for the night. It seemed to have no guests other than PCT hikers, perhaps because of the bugs. We did see a local walking his dog, wearing a head net to block the mosquitoes.

It was really hot in my tent that night, but I managed to sleep.