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...

Aqueduct Faucet at PCT Mile 534.9 to PCT mile 551.0 Day Total: 16.9 Miles We woke up to the sun rising above the horizon, lighting up the wind turbines surrounding where we were camping. There's nothing quite like seeing the sunrise in the desert to make you hurry up. It's like a ticking time bomb until unbelievable heat. We had six miles to get to the next water source where we planned to spend the heat of the day relaxing.  We stopped for a breakfast of Snickers and honey buns in a tiny smidgen of shade and then resumed walking through the wind farm. Perhaps the most unexpected thing we've seen on the trail was a black horse. No idea where it came from. The horse saw us and ran around a little before losing interest and continuing to graze just off the trail. So strange!! We made it to the water and spent the day under a big, beautiful tree in Tylerhorse Canyon with a group of four other hikers. It continues to be frustrating to want to hike all ...

PCT Mile 508.1 to Faucet at PCT Mile 534.9 Day Total: 26.8 miles We had nine mostly downhill miles this morning to Highway 138 and the hostel called Hikertown . We were hiking by 6:30 a.m. under partly cloudy skies. I've never been so excited about weather that is partly cloudy. By 8 a.m., it was hot already and we cruised to the hostel to get out of the sun. The last half mile was a straight, flat dirt road that might as well have been an oven. The local convenience store/cafe hilariously offers an hourly shuttle for hikers from the hostel to their store. They know that the free ride pays for itself many times over when they bring in a van load of hungry and cold-drink deprived hikers. We took the 9 a.m. shuttle and ordered breakfast in the cafe. We sat in their air-conditioned, wifi-filled room with indoor bathrooms for six hours. By the time we left, there were hikers at each of the 10 or so tables in the cafe. We packed up and left Hikertown a little after 7 p....

PCT Mile 485.6 to PCT Mile 508.1 Day Total: 22.5 miles Rough first half of the day. We woke up early and got going around 5 a.m.  Almost immediately I started feeling bad and was dragging. We ate breakfast an hour into hiking and I knew I needed to find a shady spot to rest. We hiked on for another half hour searching for a good place to set up the tent. We found good cover and went back to sleep.  We originally planned to make it 15 more miles before getting more water but, having stopped and it now being in the hottest part of the day, that wasn't realistic. We saw that there was a campsite – Upper Shake Campground – about a half mile off the trail with water and decided we would get there and wait out the heat of the day.  The trail to the campground was a very steep downhill. The campground looked long forgotten; every trash can was overflowing and the sites were overgrown. The water was down an unmarked trail but, with the directions from ...

PCT mile 466.0 to PCT Mile 485.6 Day Total: 19.6 miles After spending a few days in LA, the folks we'd been seeing day after day are now a few days ahead of us, and we're meeting hikers we hadn't seen before. We've met some cool people, including a girl from Switzerland who is a big time ultramarathon runner, a guy who worked in Sequoia National Park and Jesse from Vancouver, who is working remotely from his little computer as he hikes. We met a girl from Asheville, but still have yet to meet anyone from New Hampshire. Or Montana! Hopefully soon. I like the new    people we've met, but I also like the challenge of trying to catch our old friends.  We got up early to hike the 12 miles to the road crossing where we could get to a Trail Angel's place called Casa de Luna. We were hustling to get there before the heat of the day. We saw a beautiful sunrise this morning, one benefit to waking up before dawn. The miles passed quickly, some gent...

A few more photos from three days in Los Angeles with friends and a trip to Dodgers Stadium.