Which Way Is North?

Tehachapi at PCT mile 558.5 to 572.9 Day Total: 14.4 miles It is so nice to sleep in a real bed! We slept in late, and then made our way to the hotel's breakfast where we ate several families' worth of food.  Our friend from the first day, 3G – also known as Sarah – got into town last night with her parents, who are visiting from Missouri. They offered us tasty clementines and pudding, and drove us to the grocery store where we resupplied. We bought enough food to make it to Kennedy Meadows, 144 miles north. This is the most food we've carried at once and the weight is noticeable. This stretch is also one of the driest on the trail, so we carried five liters of water, enough to go 24 miles to the next water source.  We ate lunch at a neat, old diner where we were waited on by a 4th grader. She was very interested in our hike and asked lots of good questions. After we paid, she told us she would like to hike the PCT some day! We got a ride back to th...

PCT mile 551.0 to PCT mile 558.5 Tehachapi  Day Total: 7.5 mile We slept in by recent standards, until almost 7 a.m. I needed the sleep after a handful of very late nights and early mornings. Unfortunately, we camped pretty high up on a ridge in the wind farm. As you can imagine, it was windy. So windy that the tent wall kept hitting my face while I attempted to sleep and I didn't sleep much. Fortunately, we only had 7.5 mostly downhill miles down to the road crossing to town. The trail wound through hills of yet another burned area. There were charred logs everywhere. It's wild to think about how much of the trail so far has been in areas that have been recently burned. We were picked up in a tractor trailer truck by a man with pretty limited English who drives produce from Bakersfield to Las Vegas a few times per week. Apparently he sees hikers along this stretch all the time. He told us that getting a hitch is far easier in Mexico, where he is from because people i...