Tehachapi to Kennedy Meadows

We saw Epic at the cinema, four bucks and we had the most amazing lime and cherry frozen slushy. I can't say what I enjoyed the most about the film, it could easily have been that it had a ton of greenery which I hadn't seen in over a month, or it was simply that amazing slushy. Either way I had fun.

We ended up hanging around in Tehachapi until well after six and didn't have any trail angel numbers to call for a ride back to the trail, so we try for the old hitching technique. The one with the thumb. Not the dodgy thumb, the normal one. Just before we were about to give up and walk to the Appletree Inn to try find trail angel numbers a married couple in a massive Ford pickup stopped, and despite just arriving at their friend's house where they were about to have dinner they offered us a ride to the trail. The Wife chattered to us as the Husband went in to advise their friend of the change of plans, they were celebrating his success in attaining a job as a doctor after being in the US for over two years on food stamps (I think they were from Latin America). Apparently he was mighty excited.

It was interesting driving out as neither myself nor Rebecca or Rocket Llama could say where the trail began (as we skipped 8 miles of dry hilly windmills) and it was on a four-six lane motorway. We ended up driving almost the entire way to Mojave, where the Wife seemed very eager to drop us rather than on some motorway in the middle of the desert at sunset. She was very motherly. Finally we stop at an overpass, and somehow it was exactly where the trail resumed. The Husband said a quick prayer for our safety and we headed back into the hills. 

The hike began with a 1 - 1500 feet uphill, which was a slog, and full of wildlife. First we saw a pair of beady eyes reflected in our head torches lurking amongst a stand of Joshua trees. Then Rebecca briefly saw a 'deer-sized' animal above us, followed by a skunk rushing down the trail towards us (luckily no spray, although I suspect it would generally make a hiker smell better). And another large animal dashing just out of sight, it was a nervous night with all the talk of mountain lions and bears previously.

At about 10:30 pm we camp, waking late at around 7 am we set off trying to beat the heat. We don't at all beat anything, crashing under a tree we see Coyote Jodie, Vagazzle and Safari pass us heading for the water source, at which point I realise I'm out and Rebecca only has 1 litre left. It's the heat of the day and we're around 2 hours hike from this water. It goes cloudy for a while so we pack up and head out, the clouds clear almost instantly. We have to crash an hour on until late afternoon or risk even more serious dehydration. It was uncomfortable but we survived.

There were about ten or twelve other hikers resting at the water by the time we got there, and a thirsty bull also decided to join us at one point. Lets just say we filtered the water and used the Steripen. It was a wonderful trough full of tadpoles and cow spit, with only a trickle of water that wasn't spit-flavoured. More night hiking through creepy burned skeleton forests, and a rocky campsites crawling with giant ants to rest our tired bones. 

The next day we hike through our first proper forest with real green grass on the ground. It was amazing, we made it to Robin Bird spring and rested extensively, Coyote Jodie and Vagazzle apparently saw a bear that day too. Safari picked up a baby bird in the hopes that it was a hawk he could raise, I don't think it was. I hope it's ok, but I think the whole circle of life part that Mufasa glossed over in his Simba-talk may have claimed that baby bird. We had a great close encounter with a deer then camped near a grassy (grass!?) meadow. While hiking through yet more burn-zone we startled a sleeping fawn lying under a charred tree trunk the next morning. Descending about 1000 feet we found ourselves in what can only be described as the worst desert section excluding the Mojave proper. It's like mid spring when you think winter is finally over and several days of shit weather hits you. We thought we were so close to being out of the desert it would get better.

It was in this section that I began thinking 'why the hell would anyone hike through a desert? Testing yourself? Physical endurance? Or some sort of sick punishment? Why the hell not just hug a ****ing cast iron stove, it'd be a hell of a lot quicker and cheaper!'

Lets just say without the two strategically placed water caches that section would have been a hell of a lot harder, I think there was one natural water source in over 50 miles and it was 1.8 miles off trail. At sunset, after spending a draining day under Joshua trees dreaming of cream tea and English baking, Rebecca almost stood on the head of a Mojave Green Rattlesnake. According to Vagazzle that one's the most poisonous, with not one but two neuro-toxins (one being named after the snake itself). It didn't move, but as soon as we tried to dodge uphill it coiled back, hissing and rattling, fortunately it slid downhill rather than towards us. Waiting a few moments after it slid out of sight we continued on. At a road crossing a few miles on we met Horny Toad, an Israeli guy who had to skip 400 miles of the desert because he started too late and all the water caches were used up. He'd been to the water source 1.8 miles off trail earlier that evening and encountered a thirsty mountain lion. So we hear this just before dark and we intend to hike several miles further to the next water cache. Needless to say we camped early, and not just because Rebecca was feeling ill.

The next day we hiked 27 miles (43.5 km) to Walker Pass. It was hot early, with a wonderful 1000 or so feet climb nice and early. I could feel every tendon in my body by the end of it. But Pippin sourced us a ride from a lady who was riding the trail,  I can definitely respect someone riding. Two more pairs of feet to look after, more food and a hell of a lot more water to worry about. Her brother gave us a ride in, Vagazzle and Coyote rode in the back with no seat belts. They regretted this when we found out half way to Lake Isabella that the guy was still quite drunk when he asked Safari to take a breath test on a machine attached to the ignition. He'd had it fitted after a previous DUI. He offered us a ride back, but he was going fishing so we figured he was drinking more.

We hit Nelda's diner first, it was the first authentic American diner we went to. And it was great, two whole pages of crazy milk shakes and coffee with unlimited refills! After we'd all finished a pair of middle aged guys came up and started asking us questions, it turned out they were making a documentary for the The Discovery channel and were cruising around The States on BMW bikes (they were very obviously sponsored by them) seeking out people who seek crazy adventures. Then interviewing them, so they asked us a bunch of questions about why we do this stuff. We threw them a bone and gave them some juicy stuff, especially since I'd had three whole coffees! Essentially they took what they wanted from what we said, edited it and produced something with some sort of point. The best part was when they paid for our breakfast, there must have been at least 9 hikers so it didn't come cheap.

We hit up the supermarket for food, got plenty of fresh fruit and berries then headed to the Lake for some chill time. It was too hot for chill time but we did what we could. Later Rocket Llama, Rebecca and I walked back in to town for pizza and grabbed 1.75 liters of spiced rum and 4 liters of coke and back to the lake again for a wild night where we met Steve the Italian-Mexican ghost, roasted marshmallows on the fire, listened to classic rock and danced under a half-moon. It was Coyote's birthday, but she was at a bar with most of the other hikers drinking themselves sick. So Steve drunk their share of rum.

I remember Rebecca sourced a ride to the Lake after buying that rum using her poshest English accent, the guy still asked me if I had any weapons on us (apparently the town is full of old people and meth heads). We said no, I think Rocket Llama had her knife but she didn't say. She's pretty adamant about always having an 'edge'.

In the morning Steve made us ravioli by opening a can and sticking it in the fire, he also made coffee which we put marshmallows in and a side of crisps and bread. It was perfect. I learned later that while Rocket Llama was on the phone to her Mum he said "I'm gonna kidnap you, marry you, murder you and divorce you!"... it didn't make much sense but I'm glad he didn't follow through. Apart from that he never swore in front of ladies and always reminded us to respect women. It was odd. I also remembered asking him about his military service, it was a really bad idea. It was so much worse that the end of First Blood, you know the part where Rambo is sobbing and you can't understand him. Steve had most definitely been to Vietnam.

After many hugs given to cheer Steve up he seemed ok, I assured him he wasn't a ghost and he was real to us. It was nice. We went back to Nelda's for breakfast, it wasn't as good. Probably because it wasn't free. We get a ride out to the trail with Junior (another Pippin sourced ride) and wait until around 6 pm to set off. It was still hot but we played word games until dark and camped on a rocky goat-perch spot. It took us two and a half days to reach Kennedy Meadows, along the way we went over a steep mountain pass with sharp rocky teeth rising dramatically around us, camped in an eerily silent camp ground, walked more barren burn zones and saw the land turn from the dull browns, reds and golds of Southern California into the silver-grey of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The most exciting part was when Rebecca saw a bear cub dash across the trail maybe 15 meters in front of us. She questioned it at first, but there had been quite a few warnings about bears hanging about water sources in the section since Lake Isabella and there wasn't anything else that looked much like a baby bear out here.

This made us quite nervous for the next mile, making sure any foraging bears knew where we were by talking and whistling. We came across a proper river, and I saw a real tree! Not a scraggly pine, but a real tree! It was haloed by the sunset so it was pretty awesome.

Upon arriving in Kennedy Meadows Tom whisks us of to Irelan's for homestyle cooking by lamp light, it was definitely a classic mountain house place. The owner even regaled us with tales of her husband wrestling a bear in his underwear in the back room when one got in, and how when they shot it five times two bullets went through the floor and also killed the ice machine. Damn was she upset about that ice machine. It was an experience eating there. We went for burgers at the general store today, they were massive and great with free refills of lemonade! I'm tired of writing now, might hike out tomorrow, it's crazy to think we're only a few days from Mount Whitney and we've been in Sequoia National Park for around three or four days now. The trees still aren't that big.

The Road to Tehachapi

A lot of people feel nervous about the Mojave section, and why shouldn't they? It's a desert; it doesn't like you just as much as you don't like it. That's why we'd long decided to walk the lot in one night.

I was hoping to head out from Hiker Town at around five or six, unfortunately our ride didn't get us there until eight. But hikers can't be choosers. Hiker Town is an interesting little anomaly on the edge of the desert; apparently set up by one of the founders of the Hells Angels it looks like an old western film set and is actually mostly composed of old film props and memorabilia. It has a general store, gunsmith and a jail full of chickens. It's only recently become hiker friendly, I was told the last owner used the swear at hikers and refuse them water. Now it sells them beer for fifty cents and apple pie & ice cream for two bucks.

We have something to eat and talk to Emily who hiked out last night but came back with foot issues. She says it's horrible out there, even at night. Of the twenty people that left with her only two made it to the water cache in 19 miles, the rest got lost. This preempts us to use our gps, which was a good thing. After some goodbyes and thank yous to Achilles for driving us to Hiker Town we head out, and quickly find the trail to be less than responsive to our searching eyes. But we soon come to the open section of the California Aqueduct and head off along it.

With a little more wandering about we find the section where the trail branches off and follows a piped section of the aqueduct heading North. It's a good section so far; flat, cool hell you could even say we were enjoying it more than most other desert parts of the trail! Then Rebecca jumps and bursts out in a rushed breath 'fuck I thought that was a mountain lion'. It turned out to be a coyote, quite a big one too, I'd say about a medium to large sized dog. It circled around behind us, watching, we kept our head lamps on it trying to discourage any closer inspection of our cookie laden packs. Rebecca's frown seemed to do the trick.

We met up with Vagazzle and Coyote Jodie soon after and sat eating cookies, they kindly shared a nutella tortilla. Paul catches up and we set off again, soon after Rebecca sees this huge scorpion, it must have been 10cm long! But she thinks she saw Jodie stand on it so it wasn't moving very fast, it was still alive but it didn't look in the best shape, but damn was he big and ugly.

It was soon after this point that I started feeling a little under the weather, I asked Rebecca and she felt similar so we put it down to those damn Granda's cookies. 99c for 400 calories though. So we continued walking with Paul telling stories and intermittently cursing Grandma and her choice to ever take up baking. I was soon to find out that I was a little worse off the Rebecca, I must of picked something up staying with all those other filthy hikers in Agua Dulce because I just couldn't hold anything down. So We were several miles into the desert with limited darkness and water left, and I was losing water fast. A bit concerning. I'm just glad a scorpion didn't take a fancy to me when I was squatting in the scrub.
We hike on, using the gps constatntly, taking small breaks where we were harassed by little kangaroo mice for food in exchange for disease. I know a con when I see one. Finally after not a small number of special stops to relive myself, we make it to the Cottonwood Creek bridge water cache just before 5am. Everyone seems to be resting there, but Rebecca and I don't want to be caught in the desert sun, and I figure there must be tree cover in Tylerhorse Canyon as it has a small creek. We take a short break at which I fall asleep, Rebecca wakes me after 15 minutes and   we set off again leaving Paul and the rest to sleep under the thin aqueduct bridge. The sun was starting to come up and we needed to make another 6.5 miles before it became unbearable. It became too hot at about 6-6:30, and we were running low on water, and the trail began the ascent into the Tehachapi mountains. It was the three things we least wanted.

Dehydration set in pretty quick, and we hadn't slept so we were extra exhausted. I just hope that Tylerhorse Canyon has water, we needed it to have water. If it didn't it could have easily turned into an emergency situation with a helicopter ride and hospital food involved. After what seemed like an age trudging through a desert wind farm we come to a valley with a few scattered trees, shaded from the early morning sun by the east wall of the valley. Instead of elation a rising sense of dread filled me as we descended to the valley floor. I couldn't hear any running water.

Damn polarised glasses, I took them off and saw a gentle flow in the bottom of the creek. Shade, water and finally some rest. We stayed for twelve hours in the shade of a big bristly tree full of little lizards. There were lots of ants. Paul, Lorax, Coyote Jodie and Vagazzle caught up at some point (we were asleep) and we shared horror stories of the heat, talked about how dangerous dehydration was. You know, small talk about the weather.

About 7:30pm we set out and night hiked up a couple of thousand feet to a water cache full of kangaroo mice, it was pitch black. I think it's a new moon, but Rebecca was getting concerned about animals as she thought she could see animal tracks but not much else. Anything outside our small circle of light wasn't even a shadow, it was just black. In retrospect it was well founded concern because someone saw a bear up there and 789 had a 2 hour stand off with a mountain lion, luckily it was with a few other hikers. She said it disappeared for a bit then she turned and spotted it above her crouching on a rock. Shit she's lucky. I'm really regretting leaving my knife at the ranger station before Agua Dulce.

That section of trail was so diverted from fallen burnt out trees it was worse than a maze, and at night it was just no fun so we ended up camping only 8 miles in. We said we'd get up at 4 am, it was more like six before we moved. At least it was downhill to the road to Tehachapi. As we intended to night hike to the road we didn't take enough water, again. But we made it to the road, met another hiker with a hitching sign and only had to wait 20 mins for a ride! 

First think we get in Tehachapi is a milk shake, then we head to The Best Western where most hikers are staying. We source a room staying with 6 other hikers for only 20 bucks and proceed to eat and plan a trip to the cinema for four dollars! Just had a monster breakfast and prepping our resupply for some of the Sierras. Also getting ready for more night hiking tonight. Now I'd love to write more but you'd get sick of it and the iPad has started having some sort of fit. 

Heaven

Just about to head out of Hiker Heaven, just going to get some spare batteries for our head lamps as we're hoping to cross the Mojave in one night. Also have to sort out a bear canister for the Sierras. Went to all you can eat ribs and tri-tip steak, it had beans with bacon, corn, coleslaw and garlic bread as well. We felt horribly obese after and collapsed back at Hiker Heaven to watch Forrest Gump and eat gummy bears.

Time for the proper desert and then some serious mountains, I hope to see a Marmot.

The dirtiest hiker (Wrightwood to Agua Dulce)

Honestly I don't think I've ever been that filthy. My clothes no longer look good after washing. I have infused them with filth on a molecular level. It was the first time in my life I felt comparable to Blanket Man or other contemporaries of his that roam the streets and search the gutters for gold and sandwiches.

We left Wrightwood with a little more food than normal. Avocado! Cheese! Fruit! The first few days were good eating, heavy packs but good eating. Camped near the summit of Mount Baden-Powell, saw a herd of deer at the very top. I hope they didn't have ticks. I'm pretty sure I don't have ticks. Woke up the next morning with a layer of dust covering our sleeping bags, and not much water to wash the layer that had settled on our tongues. Made it to a spring 6 miles on, meeting  up with Rocket Llama and Skip, Not A Bad Day, Dixie and a guy who's name I've forgotten (he didn't have a trail name, and I seem to find it easier to remember trail names. He seemed a good guy though).

This was where we heard about the fire, Rocket Llama said she could smell the smoke the previous night and ran about terrified that she'd be swept up in it during the night. Skip informed us it was after Agua Dulce (about 50 or so miles away), but it wasn't contained and could go on for several more days. It was then we realised the pretty red sunset we'd enjoyed from the summit the previous evening had actually been the effects of a fire that has now spread over 25,000 hectares and resulted in many hikers and an entire town's evacuation. Well it seemed miles away, and I had cheese and avocado so everything was just dandy.

We hiked 21 miles, ate instant mash at a packed campground and bedded down a few miles further on in what seemed like the most stereotypical US scouts-sitting-around-the-fire-telling-ghost-stories campground. Camp Glenwood or something like that. Mixer gave us our first try of Cinnamon Whisky, we loved it.

The next day was very hot, by 10am it was hotter than the hottest day I've ever experienced in NZ. It was so hot I felt like a fried fajita with extra hot sauce. I don't know if they fry fajitas, but if they do I'd feel similar to that. We came across another damn rattlesnake that wouldn't budge, this one wasn't digesting, though we found a dead mouse 20 meters up the trail from it. It was coiled, ready to strike, and whenever we got close it would rise up rattling that burst water main rattle. I wanted a photo, Rebecca wanted to get the fuck out of the sun. We bushwhacked around it, i went back for my photo which didn't turn out very good anyway. Damn snake wasn't co-operative at all.

At about 10:30 we hid in the shade, limited shade. The kind that was disappearing as the sun moved, and you knew it was running out fast. I scouted ahead for better shade, found it, moved and lay down for four hours. Mixer caught up and did not sound happy, he had a cut foot and hadn't been able to keep food down for a few days. He hitched ahead to Agua Dulce at the next road crossing... which was in 11 or 12 miles. And on our limited water you weren't going to make it there if you started hiking before 5pm. We found this out when we tried to hike out at three. At 4:15 we hunker down until 5:30, Coyote Jodie and Vagazzle pass us saying there's a potential water seep in a mile or two. This turned out to be a tiny pool about 30cm by 15cm and 5cm deep, it was wonderful. Cool and you could taste the minerals.

At this point we started encountering bad Poodle Dog Bush, we've heard of people needing hospital treatment just for touching the stuff. Blisters and severe dermatitis. It was everywhere, almost unavoidable. dodging that bush almost doubled our energy output. I hate Poodle Dog Bush. It looks like a Dr. Seuss plant and stinks of marijuana. I heard some guys tried to smoke it, I wonder if they're still around. Basically this stuff grows like mad after a forest fire, completely floods the area. Yet another reason to reduce forest fires. 

Finally we make it past and downhill towards a Fire Station for water and rest. We get our first good view of the smoke from the fires, a bit of night hiking and we arrive at about 9:30pm. A voice crackles updates of something over an intercom (someone said fires, someone said bear attacks, it sounded a bit dramatic) but the place is deserted with a sign says we can camp out back. We have dinner, mashed potato with hot sauce, croutons and pumpkin seeds then set the tent up. We're still not cowboy camping, and happy about it. Critters everywhere and your bag gets soaked with condensation.

Up at 4am, see Skip and load up on water. It's going to be 17 miles before the next source. The Poodle Dog Bush is even worse, in one part we walk through a crazy gauntlet of Poodle Dog Bush with hundreds of bees whizzing across the trail. Kinda like Indiana Jones with the poison darts, Rebecca is wearing shorts too! A few miles in there's a detour with a ten mile road walk, half of which is steep uphill. I see a helicopter fly over with what look like massive water containers, maybe bound for the fire that could be coming closer with every minute. But we don't think that, it's a long way off and we find shade under a nice healthy pine. Those have become rare in the last section, so much forest devastated by fires it looks, as Paul aptly put it, like a wasteland. Like The Road. Most people are getting over the desert, we definitely were. It wasn't a very attractive section, too much blackened tree skeletons and Poodle Dog Bush. I'm over  dancing around the stuff. Though we can now do a sick Poodle-Dog-Robot.

It actually got cold under the shade by 2 pm, I think we were at 6000 feet so the breeze can be fairly brisk. It had only been 3.5 hours, but it was time to warm up and we wanted to make 25 miles. Of course it got too warm, but at least there was a breeze. We look across and see smoke billowing what seems like miles into the sky, imagine volcanic eruption minus the volcano. Lots of downhill, and too much uphill (it's always too much) later we arrive at the Ranger Station, water time! The Ranger informs us that 60 miles of the trail is under fire and we'll get shuttle around it when we reach Hiker Heaven in Agua Dulce. More Mashed Potato, and off we go for a further 8 miles to try complete our 25 mile day. We only make it 24. 1 mile short of a campground which we find out the next day was full of PCT hikers frying bacon, drinking home brew beer and having showers. 

At least we got a shower and some left overs the next morning, thank you Scrub Rat and Doe Eyes! The best hot dogs and fruit breakfast ever. We're there with Meanderthal, White Lightning, Brock and Jordan. Scrub Rat and Doe Eyes (who aren't hiking this year) offer to drive our stuff to hiker heaven so we only need to take minimal stuff for the 10 miles there (they call it slack-packing, a term I'd like to become more familiar with). It was still dry, but we hiked through some rocks that were on Star Trek and The Flintstones! Rebecca and I push on ahead and get to Agua Dulce first, a nice guy who rode the whole PCT on his horse (impressive!) in 2008 gave us a ride from town out to Hiker Heaven (arg I've forgotten his name!).

And here we've been; relaxing, eating peanut butter ice cream and spaghetti bolognese, cereal. Cleaned up and watched a couple of films, a real bed and free internet. This place is heaven, so well organised. No charge and it has better services than most hostels I've visited. It's amazing. Simply amazing. They have bikes to go into town, which we utilised for food shopping and may use again tonight as a place in town is doing all you can eat ribs for $15. The place was pretty packed last night, but I think most of them got shuttled out today to Hiker Town on the edge of the Mojave desert. We're planning to go out tomorrow, might hike through the night and try do the 27 or so miles of the Mojave in one go. Hoping all goes well.

Oh and we now have hiker names, Rebecca is now Concrete Babe and I am Captain America (or Captain 'Murica).