Day 49: my chain of solitude is severed :)

Wednesday 6/6/12
Miles 0
Elevation same as yesterday

Well guys, looks like my days of wandering solo has come to an end :) I officially have a hiking buddy for the sierras! Which is cool because as much as I like hiking alone, I didn't want to go through the sierras solo. My hiking partner is Not So Bad, incase you haven't figured it out. Lol. It's pretty cool because we get along ridiculously well so this should be an awesome few hundred miles :)

We ate at this cool breakfast place nearby, they had some interesting wall decor. I took some pics. Lol. I had a veggie omelette with bacon. It wasn't nearly as epic as the past few I've had, but the home fries were incredible! The place was really cool and quirky :). There was a cool jeep and a Chevy parked out front. I got a pic of both of those.

We figured out our Sierra resupply, ordered some gear from REI and finished some random other chores. Preparing for what is supposedly the most difficult yet amazing stretch of the PCT. I can't wait! :)

For lunch I made a Dorito/ramen casserole. Gourmet trail meals. Lol. U crush a package of ramen and crush a package of Doritos and mix it together, add hot water, and let it sit. I took a pic of that. Lol. I also have a pic f us hanging our sleeping bags over the TV in the room. I thought I was rather symbolic :D. But in all seriousness, it's nice to keep down bags fluffed so to maintain loft.

We stopped by Shady's Bar and Grill (yes that's really it's name), to say bye to Rocky. There's a pic of rocky and I. She's so cool. Nap time!! Tomorrow it's Kennedy Meadows or bust!! :)

Day 48: Lake Isabella or bust!

Tuesday 6/5/12
Miles 637-652 (15 miles)
Elevation 5,271ft

It didn't rain on us!! Stoked!! :D So, that cache we went to yesterday morning, I'm glad we got there when we did because I think it was empty pretty soon after. We crossed a couple people this morning going to Yellow jacket spring (where we camped at, and where we had to dig a hole for water) because they showed up at the cache and it was empty.

It was a very mellow hike to Walker Pass, where we were going to hitch into Lake Isabella. It was windy as hell though. Oh man it was so cold because of the wind! It was windy at night where we were, and we were in a small valley. The people up on the ridge had it so much worse. :( ultimately I'm pretty grateful we ended up camping there under that tree. A majority of the hiking today was downhill which was awesome! I jogged a good portion of it, because I had to make it to the Onyx post office before 4pm to pick up my resupply package.

When we finally got to Walker Pass, there was trail magic there!! THANK YOU OKEE GIRL!! She is the angel who was providing the magic there. It was incredible!! She had 2 tents setup with coolers full of soda, lunch meat and lettuce for sandwiches, a stove, water, chips, snacks, books, fuel, and overall amazingness. I have a pic of her setup. It's too bad I only got to meet her briefly, she wasn't there when we showed up, but she drove up with Weather Carrot right as we were leaving.

I have a pic of Not So Bad demonstrating proper hitchiking techniques. Lol! He has a huge hole in the seat of his pants. Normally When I hitchhike I get a ride in less than 10 minutes. This took a little longer so we were joking that Not So Bad needs to show off the goods. Lol. Hence the reason for the pic. Ironically we got a ride shortly after, to the Onyx PO from a cool military dude in a huge van. He dropped us off at a market down the way from onyx, and we got a hitch from another cool dude with base tags on his car.

There were a lot of other hikers around, we ran into a bunch, including Pop Star, who is part 1 of my Canadian Nerd Herd whom I've been wanting to meet on trail. Stoked I finally ran into him!! He's the guy in the pic with me wearing the black jacket.

We did laundry first thing and got milkshakes from Nelda's Diner. That place is somewhat legendary to PCT hikers. They have a milkshake menu that is 2 pages long!! Last night at camp, Not So Bad and I talked about nothing but food for 1.5 hours and milkshakes were a topic frequently brought up. In fact, these milkshake were a huge motivation to get to lake Isabella faster. Lol. We both had 2 milkshakes each, and shared a bread pudding. Can you say sugar high? Haha!! I took a pic of my 2nd milkshake. It was mint chip an cherry vanilla. My first milkshake was strawberry, chocolate, banana and peanut butter. EPIC :D

Lake Isabella is an interesting town. I thought the "ky liquor store" was quite an interesting name. Lol. I took a pic of that. We had a pizza at Pizza Factory and a pitcher of Blue Moon. Yum. That place has really good pizza :). There was also a cool obituary article on an elderly regular, and I took a pic of that article because there was a quote of hers that really stood out: "When you're walking, your insides are smiling.". How beautifully appropriate in relation to what I'm doing :)

We went to a cool little dive bar later that night, the bartender's name was Rocky and she was so cool. I have a pic of her. She made some killer salsa too.

Anyhow, we had some epic adventures wandering around Lake Isabella. Nothing too productive tho. Still gotta figure out my resupply strategy in the Sierras. I'm trying to resupply as often as possible to keep my pack as light as possible. Eh, I'll figure it out tomorrow. As for now, it's nap time!!! Sometimes its nice to not have to sleep on top of pine cones, ants, and cow poop. :D

Day 47: traipsing through the desert with beautiful soul #3 :)

Monday 6/4/12
Miles 623-637 (14 miles)
Elevation

Today was one of the funnest (yes I know that's not a word but oh well) days I've had hiking! And that is because I got to hike with two of my favorite people on trail: Weather Carrot and Not So Bad. The latter of which is quickly becoming one of my top 3 favorite people. So is Weather Carrot actually. But he is in a category all on his own. Because he is just *that* unique. I honestly dont think I could do him justice trying to describe him, I'll just say he's absolutely hilarious in his own way and one of the most interesting and unique people I've ever met, with a really cool outlook on life and many other things. Haha.

Not So Bad is just awesome in so many ways. He went to UC Irvine too, which is where I went to school. He is also an incredibly beautiful soul and we groove pretty well together. I'm really stoked that he's chosen to hang with me the last couple days because he's really tall and can out hike me anytime he chooses. He's the tall dude in the pic. And that's also him in the blue jacket in the sleeping bag.

The girl I'm in the picture with is Sinead. I have no idea if I spelled her name right. She is also hiking in a skirt. Team Breezy FTW! Oh my gosh, the location where I took that photo was *so windy*! Holy moly the wind was just cranking!!

Today's hiking was lots of dry desert, then we went back up to around 7,000' and back in trees again. Its nice to be in trees and shade. Not sure how long that's gonna last. Lol. Temperature-wise it was a cooler today than average, hence the reason I haven't been night hiking.

Around 8 miles from where we camped last night there was a water cache. I was a huge cache of 60+ gallons, but it was also empty, so I didn't end up taking too much water. We were trying to save some for the people behind us. The water cache is maintained by a lady named Mary. She is amazing and honestly, most of us would not be ok through this part of the desert if it wasn't for her cache. THANK YOU MARY!!! :)

So since we didn't get as much water as we would have liked, we stopped at another water source 7 miles past the cache. This one was the most interesting water source I had to drink from. It was a spring but not pipe fed, so imagine a muddy meadow in a narrow valley with a trickle of water flowing down. We had to dig a hole, wait for water to pool, then scoop it up, and filter it through our bandanas. We are both treating water with just bleach so we ended up boiling the water too, just incase. It's funny, later in the day we saw one guy who walked by, he looked at the water, and decided to go 7 miles more to the next water source. Lol. We felt like badasses! Hee Hee :)

Anyways, we took an afternoon break under a tree which was really nice, and neither of us wanted to move, hence the reason we only did 14 miles. We rationalized that it was only 15 miles to Walker Pass where we hitch into town, so we could easily do that tomorrow morning.

Gosh I really hope it doesn't rain! There are clouds blowing in and it's looking kinda grey. Ah well, at least my tent goes up pretty quickly :)

Day 46: back in the sun

Sunday 6/3/12
Miles 602-623 (21 miles)
Elevation 4548ft
Total # snakes encountered 13

2:30pm
I'm currently hiding in the waning shade of a Joshua tree right now. I have a pic of us, there's quite a few of us here. I walked 14 miles this morning to get here. It was a nice walk, there were lots of trees and it was mainly a downhill section so I did 14 miles quite easily. This was the next water source, it's a huge cache of about 100 jugs of water by the road. That was so awesome, because there is such little water in this stretch of trail that without these water caches, we would all be pretty screwed. So, thank you so much whoever it is that leaves this water here, you are an angel. <3

I saw Shutterbug and Anna under the Joshua tree! I'm stoked, I haven't seen them since Silverwood Lake. I have a pic of Tiny Dancer (it's funnily ironic because he's really freaking tall) under a tree with his tyvek groundsheet rigged over him. Hiker engineering at its finest. :D

As we were about to leave, Weather Carrot and Siddartha show up! Stoked!! Those are 2 of my favorite people so the fact that both of them arrived was pretty epic. I took a pic with both of them. Siddartha is 6'3 by the way, so he's not standing on a log or anything in that pic. Lol.

10pm
The hike out from the water cache was awesome. We left at around 6pm. It was pretty hot up until then. But the evening hike was so incredibly beautiful. Plus weather carrot was with us and he is quite entertaining. We ran across a rattlesnake. It was in the bushes, i heard it before I saw it. I tried to take a pic of it, maybe you can pick it out amongst the bushes. I also took a pic of Weather Carrot taking a pic of the snake.

The light of the setting sun amongst the hills was really pretty. The moon was so pretty too. It was, all in all one of my favorite hikes. Oh, I saw two deer too.

We ended up camping on top of a ridge. Holy hair balls it was WINDY!! But it was a nice night.

Day 45: unintentional zero day :)

Saturday 6/2/12
Miles 0
Elevation 6,314'

I woke up at 5:30pm today with the intention of doing about 20 miles or so throughout the night. I'm not sure hat possessed me at that time, to think that was a good idea, after I just did a 36 mile day. Lol.

When I first threw my tent up this morning I was somewhat worried that I'd be woken up constantly, because I was camped at a big water source. Either I was just totally knocked out or not many people came by, because I was sound asleep all day.

Anyhow, a bunch of hikers came to make camp around the time I was leaving. I walked a couple hundred yards down the trail and saw Not So Bad camped next to the trail. I stopped to chat for a bit, and ended up just camping there. Lol. So technically today was a zero day for me. I'm so glad I didn't end up walking, I think my feet would have went on strike :). Hopefully it's not as hot/dry as it seems like it'd be, during the day. We are back in pine trees now, so that really helps with shade.

Day 44: nocturnal wanderings, and 600 miles!! :)

Friday 6/1/12
Miles 566-602 (36 mile)
Elevation 6,337ft

11:30pm
The coolest experience I had today was when I came to an open part of the trail, the sun was setting to my left and the moon was shining on my right, and a deer hopped right across the trail. I thought that was pretty rad. That's the 2nd deer I've seen on the trail.

Anyhow, I'm trying to switch my body to a nocturnal system, and there's basically 2 ways to do that: sleep all day or stay awake all day and night. I chose the latter.

This morning I didn't get on the trail til about 930am. I hiked for about 7 miles and I saw a bunch of hikers taking a break under some trees so I stopped too. It was around noon and I don't like hiking during the hottest part of the day anyways. I set my tent up and tried to sleep there after everyone had left. I think I got maybe 2 hours of sleep. I started hiking again at 530 since I had 10 miles to go til the next water source.

The sunset was really cool!! I wish i got a pic of it but there were too many tall bushes in the way so I couldnt get a clear shot. But I got a pic of the windmills at dusk and a cool one of the moon too.

Anyhow I didn't get to the water source til about 1015pm. I love hiking at night the temperature is so much more favorable. Problem is the winds are around 20-30+mph right now. Ugh. At least it's not super cold wind.

So anyhow, I'm sitting at the water source now, which is a spring fed cow trough. Kinda gnarly but eh, its water :). I just cooked some food and made a mocha (I add a hot chocolate packet to coffee). The next water source is about 19 miles away. Ugh. So basically I'm gonna hike through the night and see how far I can get. I'll either bust the entire 19 miles or take a nap somewhere then get to that next water source before noon tomorrow and sleep there til evening, and then hike again. So anyhow, here I go! Geez I hope this wind calms down its pretty gnarly right now. That or I hope i don't have to walk on any ridges. Lol.

10:30am
36 miles BAM! Holy crap that just royally kicked my ass. I'm gonna pass out now, and perhaps wake up on Monday. Lol. Now that im back up in elevation theres actually trees again! Oh, I hit 600 miles around 9am :). I also got some sweet pics of the sunrise.

Day 43: gathering my chi in Mojave :)

Thursday 5/31/12
Miles 0
Elevation same as yesterday

Well, halfway through the day I decided to stay again in Mojave. Mainly to give my feet another day of rest. Plus, I'm not really in too much of a hurry since I can't get to the Onyx post office til Monday anyways. I only took one pic today, that's a group of hikers that were hanging around the pool. I'm at the motel 6 in Mojave, there are at least 20 hikers here right now. I'm rooming with Houdini and Not So Bad. Both are really cool people, Not So Bad went to UCI too! Zot Zot! Lol.

Since I've been doing some big miles lately, it's taking a toll on my body. It's interesting how I'm at a point now where I can physically handle doing 20+ miles but my feet aren't necessarily ready yet. Lol. So basically my body is saying, go go go!! And my feet are saying no no no! Haha. It's all good though, I think this next week my feet will start to catch up to my body.

I'm just really trying to not get hurt. At this point of the hike, there are so many people around me who are injured (both major and minor), I don't want to end up all busted, as well as people who are getting dehydrated. Im in the high desert right now, its 100+ degrees during the day. There's also a lot of people I know who have had to get off trail, either permanently or temporarily, due to injuries. That's not cool :(

Since I've been in town so long I am now in a completely different herd of people, that were previously behind me. Lol. It's interesting how people come in waves. Since I've been here, there have been two different waves of people that have passed by. It's quite cool, actually, I get to meet a lot more hikers.

Of course, this also means that there's going to be a lot more people on the trail, so I'm going to have to work harder for solitude. Lol. But I've always managed to find a little bubble where I hike in between clumps of people, so I'll be ok.

Anyhow, I gotta adjust my body to night hiking because I'm planning on going almost completely nocturnal til I get to Onyx which is 85ish miles away. It's 100+ degrees during the day and high 70s at night, with 20+mph winds. That's pretty much what it's been like through this whole high desert section. You either choose to deal with th heat during the day or the wind in the evening/night. :)