I woke up to a beautiful sunrise over Ridgecrest, which I enjoyed with my coffee before I started hiking at 6 am. The sky was overcast for most of the day, and it rained later in the afternoon, enough to soak me pretty thoroughly.
The clouds didn’t prevent the rattlesnakes from hanging out on the trail, however. Matthew took one on, first throwing rocks at it to try to get it to move, and then poking it with a hiking pole, which finally convinced it to retreat down into some rocks across the trail.
Matthew the snake fighter.
After about 20 more miles, my aching hips and screaming feet reached Cranebrake Road, where Tim and another gentleman named Jim were waiting with more food and beverages. A bit before I got there, some Forest Service employees had left a bunch of MRE’s with Jim, so we all tried one. Most of them had pasta, generic pop tarts, bread, and other things that added up to about 3000 calories per meal, which was awesome. It’s been difficult to keep weight on out here, even with the number of snickers that I eat.
My personal MRE chef.Mmm, pasta…After relaxing for a bit, Tim drove us down the road a ways to camp at Chimney Creek campground. A few of us hung out for a bit and then retreated to our tents to crash.
The desert flora continues to amaze me.
Dinner time at Cranebrake road.We ain’t worried about no flash floods!
“Food’s good, beer’s great, showers are the best.” ~ Strongback
Taking a couple zeroes in Lake Isabella turned out to be a lot of fun, even though the town doesn’t have much going on. We stayed at the Happy Haven RV Park for $5 a person and had showers, wi-fi, laundry, horseshoes, bag toss and a barbecue. What else does one need??
Shower first, then horseshoes.
Tim and I spent one night up the road at a hotel and, at the suggestion of a local, drove up to Kernville to eat at the Kern River Brewing Company. The drive along the lake was beautiful, and we enjoyed a lovely, non-rehydrated dinner.
The view of Lake Isabella from the hotel porch.Date night dinner spot.
The next day, we headed back to the RV park to get the rest of the gang, pick up packages at the post office and do some grocery shopping. Tim had a fun time shuttling other hikers around town as well, and in the course of an afternoon he met more people than I have the whole time I’ve been out here.
When the temperature cooled down, Tim took me, Katie, Connor and Matthew back to Walker Pass campground and we hiked up the hill from the highway (always up, it seems!) a few miles until it started to get dark. I found a small spot overlooking the distant lights of Ridgecrest, and with that and the nearly full moon I could clearly see the enormous spider walk across the top of my quilt. I tried to think about anything other than insects and spiders as I fell asleep.
The wind was calmer the next morning when we packed up to leave Bird Springs Pass. The water cache there had plenty for us all, and while we were filling up, we met a hiker named Santa’s Little Helper who was staying at the Pass for a couple days to help maintain the cache. After a chat, we headed on through the Mojave.
We ran into Caleb (aka One Strap) along the way and he joined us as we made our way to McIver’s Spring and cabin, where we set up camp for the night.
One Strap and Strongback on break.
We were soon joined by Byline, who found some cans of vegetables in the slightly horror story-ish cabin and decided to add a can of corn to his instant mashed potatoes. He was pretty excited.
The cabin at the end of the road.
Later that night, a dune buggy of sorts with flashing red and blue lights came roaring in to the campground, driven by a man and a couple ladies from the Los Angeles area, and coated everyone’s campsites with a cloud of dust. Apparently the Spring is a popular place for off-roading and they were out for an evening drive. They were really nice people and they chatted with the group for a while. Katie informed them in a good-natured way that the next time they came up here, they better bring some trail magic for the hikers. They assured her that they would.
The next day was an easy 8 mile stretch to Walker Pass campground, where Gringo and John had been staying for a few days. The campground had little to offer other than a pit toilet and some picnic tables, so they were anxious to get going as soon as I was able to get there and keep an eye on a bag of food that Matthew’s brother was going to pick up soon. There was a water cache at one of the picnic tables, with a bunch of butter horns and an inexplicable amount of bread loaves.
I was also anxious, since my boyfriend Tim was on his way to Walker Pass to meet me and stay for a few days with us in the nearby town of Lake Isabella. One of the hardest things about being out here is being away from loved ones and I couldn’t wait for him to arrive. He pulled in to the campground later that evening with a cooler full of food and beverages and he couldn’t have been a more welcome sight. We stayed the night in the campground and I slept better than I had for a long time.
Part of the trail to the campground.One of the glamorous parts of the trail…the dirt road down to the Spring.A glimpse of what’s ahead.
“Always take your breaks by a road.” ~ trail angel
I woke up safe and sound today, having had no encounters with a man, deer or bear, but my dreams of being home were so vivid that I had absolutely no idea where I was when I first opened my eyes. Nothing looked familiar. It took my brain about five minutes to separate dream from reality and then it was time to get up and get walking.
It was a pleasantly cool morning for the walk to a water cache at Kelso Road, where we found a cooler with beer, strawberry dacquiris and water. Morning magic!
The water cache at Kelso Road. The special cooler.
After a break at the cache, we hiked until it got too hot to keep moving and found some boulders to nap behind for a few hours. When we woke up and got moving again, we realized that we had slept about a quarter mile from a trail angel’s surprise barbecue (with ice cream sandwiches!) and missed the whole thing. There were a few cans of root beer left as consolation.
We took another break for the pop (you can’t have too many breaks, really) and then headed up into the hills. It soon became so windy that we had a hard time walking straight. We stopped at Bird Springs Pass and tried to find the least windy spots to camp. I managed to position my quilt in such a way that the wind funneled right into the hole in the foot box and out past my head, turning my sleep system into a wind tunnel. I was too tired to change positions though, so that’s how it stayed as I fell asleep.
Sobo section hiker, No Excuses. Also a believer that the Sierras will cause certain death.
We actually managed to get up and hiking by 5:30 this morning. This waking up before the sun and hiking in the cold in running shorts thing is not my favorite, as I am not a morning person and I don’t like being cold. One of the best things in the world is to have a couple cups of coffee in bed while scrolling through the day’s headlines. But out here the desert sun dictates the schedule – at least it does if you have the desire to avoid carrying a ton of water and the potential for heat stroke. It is hot by 7:30 in the morning so the smart thing is to hike during the early morning and later evening hours and siesta during the day.
Today’s siesta was at Robin Bird Spring, where we met Byline, a journalist from Ohio. Byline had to take a few weeks off trail to recover from a serious infection that affected the whole lower half of one of his legs. He thinks he picked up a nasty bacteria at the Deep Creek hot springs. But now he’s back, and interviewing people for his podcast, ‘Between A & B.’ Connor, Katie and I, along with two other hikers, One Strap and Alexia, talked to him about life on trail versus life off of it. Hopefully we’ll get to hear the podcast soon!
After we left the spring, we had a really pleasant walk through a portion of the Sequoia National Forest. We’re all getting tired of the desert, and although we know that we have quite a bit of it left, it was a noticeable boost in everyone’s spirits to walk on pine needle laden paths under big trees along Landers Creek.
We camped alongside the creek and just before we went to bed, Connor saw a shape in the dark that he thought could have either been a man, or a bear, or a deer. I had set up camp a little ways away from them so I wouldn’t bother them with my nighttime coughing and sniffling, but at that point they helped me drag my stuff over to their campsite because I was a little freaked out at the thought of sleeping somewhat alone with a man-bear-deer wandering around. I guess I’m not as fearless as I thought!
Alexia was my stand-in for the 600 mile photo because we were both too hot and tired to trade places.
Our plan to beat the heat today: wake up at 4 and be hiking by 5. Reality: wake up at 6 and start hiking at 7. I felt like death when I woke up, so sleeping in was fine by me.
As soon as we got up, a section hiker named Jimbo came walking out of the trees and said to us, ‘Good morning! What’s your plan for the Sierras? If you go, you’re all gonna die out there!” Shortly after we left Jimbo, we met an older gentleman on a dirt bike who stopped to ask us the same question. “You’re crazy,” was his response, “you’re all gonna die out there!”
I paraphrased all of that a bit. They actually mentioned something about postholing and breaking limbs, and how much snow is in the mountains, and how they would never attempt it this year, which is a similar message that we get from at least one person a day now that we’re getting closer to the Sierra Nevadas. We assure people that we will turn around if we don’t like the conditions, but that we want to see it for ourselves.
The uncomfortable heat of the morning sun made us forget the doom and gloom, and we decided to stop at Golden Oak Spring to eat and nap until the afternoon. There were about 10 to 15 other hikers there doing the same thing. It reminded me of nap time in kindergarten, but much dirtier.
Another enticing water source at Golden Oak Spring.
We hiked on for a few more miles until we found some nice campsites tucked into a stand of trees with a view of the sunset that signaled it was time for another day to come to an end.
Umbrellas are worth the weight in the desert.
What it feels like out here sometimes. Another cozy camping spot.
