Day 41: 535-554

Last night was the best night of sleep I've had yet. Probably because walking 25 miles yesterday totally wrecked my body. But when I woke up this morning I felt good. The first thing I noticed was that the air was completely still. No wind turbines were running. No breeze was flapping my cuben fiber tent back and forth like last night. I didn't want to wake up. But today's mileage is critical to me getting into Mojave by Sunday morning. So it was time to get up.

Southern crew

As I slowly got my crap together and packed I realized how damn stanky I'd gotten. A shower was in dire need and fast. More motivation to crush miles and get this section of the hike over with. Mowgly loaned me some cell phone power cause my battery pack died. As I grabbed water I saw the southern crew I had been hanging out with at Casa de Luna (Riley, Tyler, Lioness, some others) and decided to hike with them. The crew I was with (Ten Gallon, Spacejam, Spec, Mowgly) are super fast and wanted to cover 23 miles straight to the road, I don't think I should push my luck. It's also important to remember that today's climb was a 4400+\- ascent carrying 5 L of water, AGAIN. They opted to charge for the road and skip an extra night of camping, thus allowing them to take less water. They jammed.

Tehachapi wind farms

We hiked through a newly sunlit desert floor littered with giants. Windmills everywhere around us. It was pretty cool.

Ascended a sand riddled trail up a big mountain. I felt good and had strong rhythm. My knee was doing well and my legs feel generally stronger than normal. I started to feel like I can actually thru hike! But of course my internal confidence was crushed right at the end of the day with a few familiar sharp pains in my knee. I pulled over to camp for the night 5 miles outside of endpoint, where my partner will pick me up off the highway and take a couple zeros with me. At camp, I bullshitted with Ruth (smurfette) and Alex (not sure what his trail name is) before hitting the sack. Hopefully my knee will get me down the mountain, and the pain I had today was only temporary.

Smurfette and her boyfriend hit mile 2000 today. They started SOBO last year but had to jump off trail. They are finishing the desert section this year.  

Day 40: 510-535

Today was a huge day. I hiked in the early morning with the crew 6 miles to Hiker Town, another trail angel house down in the desert valley. From there we were going to have to hike along the aqueduct on a 20 mile waterless stretch. So we had to get to Hiker Town and get our stuff replenished, our bellies fed and get ready to go. We took off individually over the span of an hour, I was the last of the pack. Any other year during the stretch is the most hated stretch because of the intense desert heat. But today the weather was actually gonna be really cool. Still exposed but much cooler temperatures and cold wind was going to be blowing. That makes carrying 5 L of water for 20 miles with no shade a little more bearable.

When you're walking that long for that many hours by yourself you start to go a little bit mad. I started listening to some podcasts, I would stop and take frequent breaks. There's a big irony to this section because you're walking along the aqueduct - one of the great engineering feats of our time. But you can't access any of the water because it's being pumped through giant cast-iron pipes right under your feet.

dropping down into Hiker Town

Then, the most unexpected and amazing moment happened to me later in the afternoon. I'm walking along just like I have been and I noticed 3 hikers ahead of me see a car pulling up on the aqueduct. My first thought was it's really illegal to drive on the aqueduct. My second thought was maybe this is a trail angel who's got water or beer or something amazing that I can snag. The car talks to the three hikers for a few minutes and then the car starts driving towards me. When he pulls up, the guy looks at me and I realize that it's my friend Fred who I haven't seen or talked to in about three years!!! I don't have his phone number. I don't have any connection with him on social media because he's not on social media. I never had a way of ever notifying him that I was even doing this hike. I don't have anyway to talk to him and neither do any of our mutual friends. He stares at me for a quick second as I'm looking at him in total disbelief and he says to me "I found you motherfucker." It turns out he decided he was gonna come visit me and surprise me and he picked the one day that I was going to be hiking somewhere that he could actually get to me via car. He used my spot device to actually find me and intercept me! He told me he drove around for two hours looking for me on the aqueduct before actually finding me. He also brought me a big bag of snacks and McDonald's, specifically a Big Mac. He also has his beautiful dog Lucy with him which is cool.

Fred and Lucy

Lucy  

We hung out for about an hour and talked about life. It was a great check in. I gave him a big hug and I thanked him and told him how much it meant to me that he came out to find me. Then he was off. It was hard watching him leave. I knew I still had about 10 more miles to go so I kept walking.

I finally got to my water source for the day. And it was a really nice way to end the day because when I got there I saw the crew that I was with the morning earlier, so the whole day kind of came full circle. The best part is, I did 25 miles today. I'm one day closer to getting into Mojave and resting and hanging out with my girlfriend.

happy as a clam  

Day 39: 493-510

Got up this morning and did some first aid on my feet. They are starting to get that nasty look. Lots of Leuko tape on my toes. My ass and pits are stanky, and I'm caked in dried sweat. This camp has a water source but it's way the hell down a steep canyon covered in poison oak. The thought of climbing down there to get 5 liters of water which I have to carry 15 miles is slightly annoying. I buck up and do it.

The desert down below. In a few days, I should be on the other side of it and over those mountains in the distance.  

I hiked most of the day with Ten Gallon and Shades. The trail snaked along the ridge of a mountain most of the day, with sweeping views of the Mojave desert. There are hundreds of wind turbines on the desert valley floor, paired with massive solar farms. Pretty cool seeing where all the cap and trade money is going.

Passing mile 500. But I didn't ACTUALLY hike these 😎 

I made plans to stay in Mojave for a few days for memorial weekend. I'm going to try and push big mikes tomorrow so I can make it by the end of the weekend.

In the afternoon, I hiked mostly solo and finally ran into Ten Gallon and his lost crew at Horse Camp. They seem really nice and I decided to tag along with them for a couple more miles to make tomorrow's hike down into the valley slightly shorter. His crew includes Mowgly from Costa Rica, Speck from Connecticut, and Space Jam from Sonoma. Today ended up totaling 17 miles! Still no pain! We all cowboy camped and shot the shit for a while before going to bed. It was windy all night.

Speck (left), Spacejam (right) 

I'm starting to go through interesting transitions emotionally. I notice that I'm a lot more emotional, but not in a bad way. I'm just feeling a lot of feels. Missing my peeps, feeling happy and grateful, frustration, excitement, fatigue, etc. it's all balled into one. When the world moves around you at 2.5 mph you have so much more you need to process.