In doing my research for the PCT, I came upon a survey for hikers that breaks down likes and dislikes for various aspects of trail life. One of the parts of the survey was favorites and least favorite parts of the trail itself. Coming in at number #2 and #3 least liked sections of the trail are Tehachapi to Walker Pass and the Aqueduct, respectively. These are both notorious sections of the desert because the normal temperatures are in the 110s, the scenery can be kind of monotonous, and the water sources are extremely limited. For the first time yet, I’m extremely happy that it’s cold out, and that it’s been never ending rain! Now it’s a balmy 90 degrees, and all of the possible water sources are running! Trigger warning: if you continue, there are a lot of snake pictures in your future (also lots of windmills and flowers)!
Also, since around mile 400, the tramily has been discussing a possible flip of the trail in order to bypass the Sierras. All of this bad weather we’ve gotten in the desert has translated to record breaking snow in the mountains that starts at around mile 700. Basically there is snow from there, all the way up to the Canadian border, so skipping the Sierras doesn’t get us out of snow. However, the late breaking storms have caused the Sierras to have a really high avalanche danger this year. Also, high snow years can be deadly, not because people fall on the mountains, but because of swollen rivers from the snow melt. Crossing the Sierras now would mean almost daily high river crossings. The last high snow year was 2017, and in that year 2 women died fording rivers in the Sierras. All of this was on my mind as we discussed possible options of if and where we should jump to. The thing that clinched it in my head was in talking to my brother about possible flip options, he pointed out that Washington (where he lives) is actually under a drought and is expected to have a bad fire season this year. Having lived in California for the last 6 years, I’ve been dreading the possibility of hiking through wildfire smoke. Living in it in my apartment was next to unbearable, so I can’t imagine hiking in it! My friend Savior is a Washington native, and after discussing it further with him, a plan was hatched to leave the desert at mile 652.1, and drive up to Oregon to continue northbound (getting Oregon and Washington done before fire season really kicks in) and then come back and do the Sierras when they are safer, later in the summer. Both Savior and Beast have decided that this was the best option for them as well. There’s still snow in patches in Oregon (again, there’s snow everywhere), but in Oregon’s 450 PCT miles, there’s only one potentially dangerous river crossing, and there’s also a slim to no chance of avalanche anywhere because of terrain and recent weather. Additionally, both Oregon and Washington fires have derailed many a PCT hiker in recent years, and I’d prefer snow and mosquitoes to smoke and fire alternate routes. Many of our friends (including half of our tramily, Merlin and Gravy 😭) have decided to stay the course and instead take some time off trail in order to let the snow melt. With this in mind, these last 150 miles in the desert were spent trying to see and hang out with all of our friends that we’re saying goodbye to before we skip up to Oregon. It’s sad to leave them, but we all realize that we need to hike our own hikes and do what we think is best, given the difficult circumstances.
Day 45: 21 miles hiked. We woke up super early, determined to see the sunrise over the desert and beat the Mojave heat. Despite it being milder temperatures, the sun can still feel oppressive, and there was going to be little to no shade for the next 30 or so miles. The night before, we had agreed with our friends to hike to Hikertown early, rest for awhile, and then start the notoriously boring aqueduct section later in the day, after it cooled off. Mornings in the desert are stunning. The way the early light plays off of the hills and sand dunes is spectacular, and a great way to start the day. We transitioned from sandy hills to grassy meadows as we got closer to the flat desert floor. Eventually we started to see one of my favorite flowers everywhere: poppies! After 6 miles, we made our way into our rest stop for the day, Hikertown. Hikertown is a strange place to walk into. It’s owned and managed by people that used to work in Hollywood, so it’s set up like the set of an old western movie. Beast and I went to the nearby town and got some town food/drink and went back to Hikertown to await the arrival of our friends. They all slowly filtered in, and we all hung out under the tree (the only shade) and waited for the sun to lose some of its intensity. It was great to relax and chat with everyone! By 5, it was finally an agreeable temperature out, so Beast, Savior, and I made our way back on trail. Everyone else was supposed to come, but they were having so much fun in Hikertown, they decided to spend the night and leave at 5am instead. The three of us made our way to the aqueduct, which is famous amongst pct hikers because it’s completely flat and mostly straight, a road walk (the worst!), it’s hot, there’s no shade or water, and the scenery looks the same for miles regardless of which way you look. Despite it not sounding too fun, I was excited to hike it at night, as there were no clouds and no moon that night, which made for some pretty epic star gazing. The aqueduct starts out uncovered, and it’s a bit odd to see so much water in the desert. It eventually turns into a covered pipe that you are supposed to walk on top of. The only problem was that there were these giant rivets all over the place, and they did not feel good to step on! This was especially true because I was in need of new shoes at that point because my current ones didn’t have any padding left to cushion my feet from anything I stepped on. The only redeeming factor was that we were surrounded by Joshua trees allllll over the place! After a couple hours walking along the pipe, the aqueduct turned and went under a dirt road that we continued to follow along. The sun began to set, and we continued walking without our headlamps in order to see the stars better! The fun thing about night hiking in the desert is that most of the wildlife is nocturnal, so we were finally able to see living things, including: jack rabbits, centipedes, kangaroo mice, lots of ants (apparently they never stop working), and some giant spiders. By 1am, we were all spent and set up camp a few miles from our next watering hole.
Day 46: 19 miles hiked. Get ready for some windmill pictures! We woke up at around 7 when the heat from the sun became unbearable in our tents. We packed up, and started the walk to the next place that had both shade and water, and we were instantly surrounded by windmills everywhere! It was oddly beautiful. Today’s hangout place was under a bridge that passed over Cottonwood Creek. This spot also marked the end of the aqueduct, as the rest of the day would be on an actual trail, climbing up over the hills. I’m sad I didn’t get any pictures of this bridge, because it was basically 30 hikers following the shade around as the sun moved along. Most were napping, and I was able to get some zzzs in as well. Eventually it cooled off enough to continue on, hiking amongst the joshua trees and windmills. We stopped at the next river and ate dinner while the sun set and continued on up the hill. At this point we were all incredibly tired from the heat and lack of sleep, but we pushed on as we wanted to get over these hills when it was 70s out instead of 90s and we also wanted to get to the next town of Tehachapi. Around 2am, we passed the 550 marker and then found a flat spot on top of the hill to set up camp for the night.
Day 47: 6 miles hiked. We woke up after just a couple hours of sleep, incredibly motivated to get to town and get some real food for breakfast. This was especially true, since we had also run out of food and had no other options for eating. We discovered that, on the other side of the ridge we just came over was…. more windmills, this time as far as the eye could see! We got into Tehachapi, and immediately made our way to a diner where we all ordered huge breakfasts. We checked into a motel room, and then made our way to the post office, where I had some care packages (thanks, Jo and dad!), including new shoes! All the goodies made it feel like it was Christmas! These shoes lasted me 550+ miles, and I was sad to say goodbye to them, but in awe of how clean, not stinky, and how much tread my new shoes had!
Day 48 and 49: 0 miles hiked. We decided to take a double zero in order to let our friends catch up with us so that we could hike the last desert section together. This worked out great because the three of us were exhausted, and we also had a lot of chores to do. My sleeping pad had been leaking air the last several nights, and the best way to find leaks is to put it under water. This was by far my favorite chore 😂😎. From there, I sewed up a few holes in my mesh pockets on my backpack, and super glued some broken things. We were able to get several delicious meals, and hang out with all of our friends. At night, we hung out in the hot tub, along with 30+ strangers that were also hiking the trail. That wasn’t an exaggeration, we counted off and got up to 36 people in the tiny hot tub! It was fun, but I’m definitely excited to leave this hiker bubble behind and get some more solitude!!!
Day 50: 15 miles hiked. We decided to hike with a tramily that we’ve been leapfrogging since day one. (Their tramily name is GGWW, and it consists of Dr Seuss, Goodtimes, Game Over, Mangy Carl, Buddy, and TT.) We’d all become friends, and we wanted to spend as much time together before Savior, Beast, and I headed up to Oregon. We stopped at a German bakery on our way out of town, and we all got HUGE (and delicious) sandwiches. Merlin, Savior, Beast, and I got done eating first, and headed back to trail where we were again surrounded by windmills. As we were walking along, I came upon what looked like a giant black snake, but what turned out to be a downed power line! I took a picture to show my safety inspector sister, and carefully plodded my way around it. We eventually got down the last hill with windmills for awhile and started to walk along a road parallel to train tracks that featured miles long trains. We crossed the next highway and found a nice spot to eat dinner and let our friends catch up to us. There was a man named Glow Worm there, and I was excited to cross paths with him. He takes pictures of himself in speedos all along the trail and posts them to the PCT Facebook group. So I’ve been seeing pictures of him for months, and it was cool to finally meet him in person. We ate dinner with our friends, and the 4 of us continued on, trying to get some more miles in in the coolness of the night. There was a 5 mile hill in front of us, and none of us wanted to do it with the sun up. About a mile into the hill, Savior caught what I believe was a gopher snake with his trekking pole! The snake didn’t seem too happy, so we let him go and continued on up. As we climbed, the wind picked up, and we could no longer hear each other unless we were yelling, so we walked in mostly silence. We saw some geckos and another tarantula. At one point, I had to pee, so I told them to go on ahead without me. Within minutes after I started up again, I was startled to see what appeared to be 2 dead snakes on the side of the trail! Neither were moving, and they were both in knots (ones tail was a knot, and the other was a complete knot). It freaked me the hell out, and I absolutely did not want to be alone anymore! With the wind, I couldn’t yell to my friends, so instead, I sprinted to catch up with them. Apparently, they hadn’t seen it, so it must have happened in the 2 minutes I got behind them. I calmed down and pieced it together that the one snake must have been mid-strangle when I came upon it, and that is why it wasn’t moving. My friend, Goose, later identified it as a king snake eating a gopher snake. Nevertheless, I decided to never hike alone in the woods at night again!
Day 51: 19 miles hiked. The rest of our friends caught up to us by the morning, and we all sat and had a big breakfast together, thanks to Beast packing out eggs and bacon. We packed up and began our trudge to the next water source, another 9 miles away. Today was hot, and we were walking on dirt roads for much of the time. We also were in the middle of a 15 mile no water stretch, so we had extra weight in our packs from all the water we were carrying. This had the effect of making every climb seem endless, even though the longest one was 2 miles and all the other climbs barely registered on the elevation profiles on our maps. We all took refuge under a giant tree for an hour, as we all were tired and in need of some relief from the sun. We eventually made it to the water, where we found about 40 people hanging out. It was nice and shady, and there was water, so it was a popular spot to be. I ate some lunch and then promptly fell asleep. I knew we were going to be hiking into the night, and so instead of socializing, I got some rest. I slept until 5, ate some dinner, and then packed up and started walking again with Beast and Savior. Although we had agreed to hike with our other friends, it was a bit difficult, as they liked to get up super early and beat the heat, and we preferred staying up late. This meant we had breaks together, but different starting and stopping points, so we were still hiking on our own for long stretches. As we set out, the sun began to set. We were again in a windmill farm, and the moon was just a sliver, so it made for a beautiful sunset! We eventually came to where our friends had set up for the night, and Merlin decided to join us for the rest of our night hike. It was great fun to hang out and chat while we got our remaining miles in for the day. We came upon a blown down tree that was up to my belly button, meaning a little too tall for me to easily get over. I asked for help, but also just started to go up it before help could arrive, and I promptly fell backwards (stupid pack, throwing off my center of gravity!) and landed on my pack, halfway off the trail. My friends rushed over to make sure I was okay, and once it was clear I was fine, began to laugh as I had turtled myself (imagine a turtle on its back struggling to get on its stomach). With my pack weighing so much I couldn’t get up going forward, and had to resort to rolling around to try and stand up. Eventually I was successful getting on my feet and we continued on our way. We eventually found a field and set up camp for the night.
Day 52: 19 miles hiked. We woke up the next morning when our friends showed up after their early morning hike. We all sat around eating breakfast (and for them second breakfast) for awhile and had a great time hanging out. We were at the base of a 10 mile climb that had no water until the very top of it, and none of us wanted to get going, since at 7am, it was already hot! Eventually we started to filter out and make our way towards the next watering hole. The scenery as I climbed was beautiful, with windmills and fields all around me. As I climbed, I saw Gravy, Savior, and Beast all crowded around something up ahead. As I got closer, I saw that Gravy had caught a snake. He called out to me and said “hey Skittles, want to see a rattlesnake?” That’s right, Gravy caught a rattlesnake! I cautiously approached, and the snake was clearly not happy because he was rattling at me like crazy. I snapped a picture and Gravy released it by tossing it in a nearby bush, where it continued to rattle at us, but from a safe distance. We began to slowly walk up the hill again. It was incredibly hot today, and anytime there was even a small amount of shade, it was break time! After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it to the 600 marker! Shortly after 600, we arrived at the days first water source. We hung out there for awhile, again trying to wait out the sun. The next 5 miles after this were a luxury, with water constantly. We left our hang out spot, and set out for the last water source, where we’d eat dinner. This was a beautiful section, with rivers, meadows, and giant oaks everywhere. It was a great change from the last several days of sand and shrubs. The last water source for the day was actually the last water source for 35 miles! Knowing this, we wanted to get a few miles into the water carry before we went to bed. We ate dinner with all our friends and said goodbye to them, as we were unsure if we’d see them again, and then set out for the last 4 miles of the day. At this point it was our third day of night hiking and I was beyond exhausted because of the lack of sleep (I’m not a good napper unless I’m deathly ill and we couldn’t sleep in because the hot sun continually woke us up), but it was necessary because we needed to get the miles in before our scheduled pick up. Plus it was going to make the long haul of water a bit easier because you drink less water at night than during the day. So hike on we did! We got into camp around 11pm and I promptly passed out.
Breakfast with friends (photo credit: Beast)
Day 53: 22 miles hiked. We woke up early with only 31 more miles between us and water. As I began my walk, I was struck by how I finally felt like I was going on a desert walk, and it only took me 600 miles to get here! We had heard that there were 2 possible water caches along the 35 mile stretch with no water. One 7 miles in, and the other after 22 miles. While caches are great, they can’t be relied upon, since we have no way of knowing when they go empty or when they get refilled by trail angels. Because of this, we all filled up to capacity at the last water source, and were each carrying about 15 lbs of water! The hike to the first cache was all downhill, and the views of the desert floor below were stunning. At this point we were hiking in the foothills of the Sierras, and we were getting excellent views of the mountains off in the distance as well. We got to the cache, and thankfully there was a ton of water for us. We sat and drank a couple of liters (a practice known as cameling up) and refilled our packs with what we had already drank in the first 7 miles. As we left the cache, the wind began to pick up and cool us off. I was finally grateful for all of the recent rain storms, as it meant there were flowers everywhere, with every bush, shrub, tree, etc. blooming! The color was a nice break up in the monotony that ensued for much of the day. The day was filled with so many Joshua trees, and they offered the only shade as well. At this point, the three of us were very tired of desert landscapes. We’ve been walking in the desert for 53 days, and we were all ready for a change of scenery. So despite the day being very beautiful, we were all feeling a little down. Between the exhaustion from night hiking, the heavy packs due to water, saying goodbye to our friends, the lack of shade, and the heat, we were all ready to get these last 2 days over with. This basically meant that I had the mindset of “ugh, are we there yet?” all day. And while I was grateful that the 60+mph wind was cooling me off, I was not grateful that it meant I had sand constantly being blown in my eyes and mouth, my backpack straps were whipping me regardless of if I tucked them in, I couldn’t keep my hat on to help shade me, and that I was getting exhausted whenever I had to deal with it being a headwind. At a certain point, I found a Joshua tree and laid down in the dirt amongst some shrubs, trying to get some shade and relief from the wind. The wind was making a crazy whistling noise through the leaves of the tree, and I got very little rest because beetles kept crawling all over me. After what seemed like an eternity, I made it to the second water cache, which again had water. We ate dinner and tried to decide what we should do. We had walked 18 miles, but were still 22 miles from the road where we were going to get picked up from to go to Oregon. I was sick of night hiking, but I wanted an easier last day, so onward we pushed up the hill in front of us to the next campsite, 4 miles ahead of us. As we climbed, the sun began to set, and it was beautiful! It was weird to think that this was my last sunset in the desert! We continued to hike for another couple miles before camping, and I was happy to know this would also be my last night hike in the desert as well!
Day 54: 18 miles hiked. Only 9 miles stood between us and water, and 18 miles between us and my mom! I don’t remember much about this day, as all I could focus on throughout it was that it was my last day in the desert, and how excited I was to be leaving it behind. I came across a cow skeleton, which towards the end of the long water carry, felt very foreboding. We eventually joined a dirt road that we walked on for awhile. We found a snake that took up about half of the road! When we finally got to the water source, it was covered in hikers, and I got a couple liters and immediately pushed on as I was so ready to not walk in the desert anymore. I also passed the 650 mile marker, and reached the point where there was less than 2000 miles left! When we got to the meeting point for our pickup, we found that there was trail magic going on! A bunch of past thru hikers had set up “hobo town” and it was great fun to relax and chat for a bit before my mom arrived. My mom came and picked us up and drove us to the town of Ridgecrest where we were going to spend the night before driving up to Oregon. Our friends (Merlin, Gravy, and the GGWW tramily) had bailed off of trail shortly after we had said goodbye to them because of some health issues and they had been planning a side trip off trail, so it was an amazing surprise that they were also in Ridgecrest. We were so happy to be able to see them one more time. We went out to dinner and then hung out at the motel for awhile. As my mom and I were about to go to sleep, I discovered 2 bedbugs on my bed!!! I spoke with management and we got a new room, but it was clear to me that it was well past time to get out of the desert!
I'm happy when I'm hiking 