Day: June 22, 2016

Yes, I walked through more wind farms today, but hallelujah there are trees.  I woke up very early as planned and headed out just before 5 am.  I was able to sit on a rock outside my tent to eat my cold everything bagel with cream cheese.  These bagels are not nearly as good as the oat ones I got in Agua Dulce last resupply.  I also discovered that the coconut oil leaked again and doused nearly everything in the bag.  I guess coconut oil is just not meant for hiking unless you have a really good container to keep it in.

The first eight miles to the spring went pretty quickly.  It took an hour to fill six bottles and eat my other bagel.  Next water is twenty miles and I doubt I have a 28 in me today.  I’ll probably camp a few miles short and make a morning spring run like today.  Both people and animals frequent Springs, so I tend to shy away from camping near them when possible.

The morning before and after the spring consisted of wind farm after wind farm again, but smaller than the ones of the previous few days.  At one break I counted 56 turbines in one field and 10 of them were not working.  A failure rate of almost 20% seems high to me.

It started getting warm around noon and the campsite I was going for that said it had great shade was still two hours away.  About 1:30 I finally found something suitable and stopped early.  I did not get too hot, but I got hotter than I wanted to and went through more water than I wanted to.  I added some electrolytes to a liter just to make sure.  I ate and napped there until 5:30 and then headed out again.  When I got to the campsite I was headed for, it did have better shade and more shade from oaks instead of pines.  Every time I nap under a pine, something gets sap on it.  This time it was my pants and a tiny bit on my shirt.

I had charged my phone last night from the battery and had the battery charging on the pack while I walked.  I don’t think it charged much while walking, but during siesta, I set it out in the sun and it fully charged the battery, so I think I might have a workable system for the remote areas now.

When I set out again, I was tired and sluggish.  I was using the umbrella, but it wasn’t so hot that I felt in really needed it, so I put the umbrella away and got out the poles.  I must admit that my pace seems to pick up a bit when using the poles.  I think I will start using them in the mornings and evenings when I don’t need the umbrella.  I tried the umbrella and one pole thing this morning and I didn’t like it.  I think it’s one or the other.

I only have 4.5 miles to go to the spring, but I got tired and it was after 7:30 so I stopped to camp at a gap which is quite windy.  I hope the wind dies down a little so I can get some good sleep.  I can tell I did not get enough last night.  You need plenty of food and sleep to hike well.  I’ll try stopping early and not starting so early tomorrow to see if that gives me more energy.  I’ll also try to take my siesta a little earlier, too.

Today was an inverted nearo.  I rented a car at 8 am and drove all day, returned the car, and got dropped off at the trail at 5 PM, but sat in the shade of a gully wall for an hour before I took off.  It was a scorcher today.

I had two errands to run with the car, look for my glasses and go to REI in Rancho Cucamonga.  Luckily they were both in the same direction.  I decided to take the route out of town that hugged the mountains but was still in the desert.  It went through small towns all along the way, but first stop was Mojave.  This is the town where Dick and Burt Rutan built all sorts of crazy airplanes like Spaceship One and the only plane to fly around the world without refueling.  The guy who gave me a ride into town yesterday worked there.  Passing through Mojave at 9am it was already 102 degrees.  Palmdale was the other notable town the rout went through which was also a big aircraft town, but not much to see just driving through it.

Driving back to Cajon pass to look for my sunglasses.

Once I got near Cajon pass, I found the canyon road pretty easily.  The way point I had marked from Google maps apparently has an old route for the PCT because it had me about two miles from where I needed to be.  I whipped out one of my hiking apps and quickly found the right spot.  The temperature was 102, but with the umbrella it was not too bad.

Everything was as I remembered it.  If I was lucky, I would only have to hike one mile to my first resting spot.

I got there in twenty minutes and searched for ten.  No glasses.  I then came back to the water cache and looked high and low.  No glasses.  I then decided to hike a half mile in the other indirection to where there was a trail register.  No glasses.  After an hour and a half in the desert, still no glasses.  It must have been the second spot that I went back and checked the night I lost them but for some reason could not find them.  Or perhaps someone did pick them up.  I took pictures of the register at the water cache just for my records.

I have embraced the “Dirty” but still clinging onto the full “Gilligan” at this point.

Back in the car and off to Rancho Chupacabra.  I found the REI quickly, but was hungry so I went to eat at a Pacific island grocery that had a deli.  I ate some sort of rice noodles.  This is the third dining faux pas.  First beans and Mac n cheese, now fancy ramen.  It was better than grocery store ramen.

On to REI.  First up pants.  My pants are getting loose and have an adjuster but it slips and I wanted to see how the next size down fit.  Too tight.  Next up – ice axe.  I checked my size and it looks like 55 or 60 will do for me.  But I just couldn’t pull the trigger on $100 I might need only once.  I decided to forgo the axe and get poles instead.  They had an REI branded folding carbon poles half price.  Deal.  Last up – solar charger.  I’m about to get into more remote areas and the phone eats about 20% per day even on airplane mode and the battery backup has worked once, but one time was already out of juice.  I think k it’s worth the piece of mind to charge the phone from the battery each night and charge the battery from solar power each day.  Done.  When I get back to the car, it’s already 116 degrees.  Sheesh, I need to get back to the mountains.

On the drive back, I decide to take the bigger roads that go through the middle of the Mojave desert to see what’s there.  Nothing is there, not even passing zones.  Playing dodgeball with trucks is not fun.  The poor little Nissan versa can hardly keep the car cool even with the AC on full blast.  It’s hot, like 115 hot.

I get back to town at 3:30, so that gives me thirty minutes to fill up the car with gas, eat, and hit the post office.  I grab a burrito at Del Taco (again with the foods I make on trail), I hit the gas station.  The car was on fumes and still only took 9 gallons.  I made a beeline for the post office and there was quite a line.  It only took 15 mins and then I was off to the rental agency.  I got there at 4:20 and they had time to buzz me out to the trail.

I had 17 miles to next water, so I loaded up with five liters.  It was mostly climbing for six miles to the first good camping.  I ran across an interesting campsite that used dead Joshua tree logs as a windbreak.  These logs end up being like balsa wood, but if you stack enough of them, they do make a good wind break.  I wonder if this counts as an established campsite or not?  I went a little further before making camp for the night.

An improved campsite with a really solid wind break.

Once it turned dark, the views back towards Mojave were quite impressive.  The silhouette of wind turbines against a reddening sky is a neat experience.  Even though it is hard, the desert is still beautiful.

Wind turbines are everywhere between Tehachapi and Mojave.

These large turbines must have significant gearing and generators in them that require quite a bit of lubrication.

A short 8 mile day today just to get to town.  I was out at 5:45 and at the road just after 9:30.  I saw a runner going up as I was going down and there was a truck at the bottom of the mountain, so I was hoping to be able to get a ride to town with him as long as he wasn’t going farther than I thought and take too long to get back to his truck.  I stopped at the road to check the bus schedule and get rocks out of my shoes when he came by.  As luck would have it, I was right and he was going right by where I needed to go so I scored the easiest hitch of the trip so far.

The final mile to the highway between Tehachapi and Mojave.

The entire eight miles was through the major part of the same wind farm as yesterday.  This is the birthplace of wind power.  The display they had was pretty informative.  The current models supply 10mw of power each (might have been 3mw).  There was a whole row of these big GE ones spewing grease out the back of them.  I imagine they have serious gear reduction and need alot of lubrication to keep them from burning up.  Clean energy, huh.  There must have been ten different models of turbines in just this one field.  The older ones looked like toys compared to the modern ones.  This farm started in 1980.

Entering a newer section of one of the oldest wind farms in the world.

The temperatures were pretty warm for that early in the day once I got to the backside of the mountain and the wind died down.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the biggest day of the heat wave so I’m not looking forward to the next week.  This is the last 135 miles of desert before I hit the Sierras at Kennedy pass.

I used my Marriott points to stay at the Fairfield Inn for free tonight (yay points) and spent the afternoon doing errands.  First up was visiting the Big5 sports in town.  I was able to find some nice Saucony shoes on sale for $40 that are pretty comfy.  Had to go with size 13 shoes.  A fresh fuel canister and two pairs of socks and I’m set other than snow gear.  I have microspikes in the box at Kennedy Meadows, but the snow is still deep enough that I will also need either poles or an ice axe to be safe.  Looks like I will have to rent a car tomorrow and hit an REI to get the last goods.  I can also make a trip back to Cajon pass to try to look for my sunglasses.

Now I is time for dinner at the local BBQ joint run by a native American who has teepees out back that he will actually let hikers stay in if they ask nicely.  People rave about it and I imagine it might be the only decent BBQ I will find on the entire trail.  My major mistake was in ordering beans as a side dish.  Beans?  Aren’t I sick of beans yet?  Apparently not.  Something green (green beans) would have been a better choice.