Day 35

18.2 // 510.9

The hiking this morning was lovely. Shaded, large trees, cooler temps. Beautiful colors.

Nothing too steep, just rolling.

Water was at a cistern at 9 miles. I took a break just before the cistern, by then it was climbing and exposed again. Desert plants, etc.

WE PASSED 500 MILES!!!!!  Cue the Proclaimers!!!!!

Once at the cistern, I filtered 1 liter. Bob had already filtered 2. We took a break, not long. We hiked 2 more miles and had lunch since it was noon. We did 12 miles before 12! This break was longer, shoes and socks off, lunch, but still only 45 minutes.

We marched on again for another 4 miles to another camp site. We took a break again because the spot was so nice. Shoes and socks off, cool, shaded, about 30 minutes, then headed to our final camp site destination another 3.5 miles away.

We have a good size group and there is limited camping. We managed a place for everyone. It is near water. We had a nice dinner together around Songbird’s tent. We all washed up, did hiker laundry, and were able to go to bed early. Tomorrow is a short 7 miles to Hikertown where we will get packages, charge all electronics, and rest for our aquaduct night hike! 😬

Day 36

6.71 // 23.7  // 540.4

We left our camp around 7am for a quick 7 miles down to Hikertown. There is a lot of nervous energy around today. We have 24 miles to hike at night to avoid the heat of the day.

We got to Hikertown, which was a weird place. We are a large group, so we felt safe.

It is an area in the middle of no where with old movie set western buildings, props, etc.

There was an outdoor sitting area where we all gathered and there was a charging station. We all plugged in our devices as they all were pretty low or out. You could rent but a room, a shower, camp, etc. There was a guy who would give you a ride to the Neenah Cafe and Market, also owned by the Hikertown person, but he could only take a few people at a time.

As we were sitting there more and more hikers were coming down, all with the same idea. Get to Hikertown, eat at the cafe, rest, charge, leave at night/evening. Hike the 24 mile stretch, get to the Tylerhorse Canyon Road camp and water (17 mile water carry) and rest the next day.

We got a ride to Neenah Cafe and Market and ended up staying there for several hours. It is another weird location but has food (burgers, tacos, etc), some groceries, showers, cots to rest, room with tables to hang out. We ate, bought snacks, showered and rested, made hotel arrangements for Sat/Sun, then ate again. We were waiting for a ride back, but the guys were not in a hurry to get us back, so Bob got us a ride in the bed of a truck. There were 7 of us shoved in the bed with five backpacks.

Once we got back to Hikertown, we continued to charge, fill up water bottles and get ready to hike through the night.

We left at 6pm. There was a group of 11 of us. There were two other large groups hiking it around that time too.

We all walked the LA Aquaduct. It was cool to see everyone, to hike during the sunset, to see the Joshua trees, to do glow sticks, and to hike together in the night. The length however was too much. We did not stop much and not for long when we did. Even so, we did not make it all the way to Tylerhorse Canyon road. Around mile 21 we were down to 5 people. Our choice was to hike 1 mile with a 300 foot incline or 2 miles with 1000 foot incline to our intended destination with water. We decided the 1 mile. We were all far too tired to reach 24 miles.  We stopped hiking at 2:45am. I can say I am very glad to have this section over.

Day 37

8.84 // 549

This morning we were woken up right away because people hike from midnight or 2 AM or whatever time to get to the other side of the Aquaduct.
We set up our tent inches off the trail, we went to bed at 3:15am and were hearing people on the trail starting at 4:20 AM. As soon as the sun came over the hill, which was around 6 AM we started cooking in our tent. Our dyneema tent does not provide shade from the sun. So we quickly got our stuff out of the tent. There was one tree in our campsite and we put our stuff by that. We got ready as quickly as we could, but still didn’t leave until 8:30 AM. It was already very hot. And they were lots of people on the trail trying to get to the water source 1 mile away. This is the last water source for 17 miles so everyone was headed there. It was expected to be in the 90’s. I walked slowly that mile and was my face was dripping with sweat by the time, I finally arrived because it was 1000 foot ascent as well as already very hot. Once we got down to the stream, we decided that we would need to stay there all day. So we all went underneath this very large oak tree and proceeded to set up camp for the day. We stayed there just eating, hydrating, napping and relaxing. It’s very hard to sit still when you need to get the miles done, but we needed to recover from our night hike and it did not make sense to hike in the heat of the day. There were many other hikers that were doing the same thing finding shade by this last water source and resting until it got a little cooler. We finally left at 4:30 PM. We planned on hiking to a campsite 8 miles away. That leaves us 10 miles for tomorrow to hike down to Tehachapi. We got to a campsite that has also a water cache!!! It’s very cute. They have an umbrella, a little outdoor kitchen set up with water, coolers and oranges in the boxes. We arrived at this camp at about 9 PM. And we made dinner in the little kitchen area together and went to bed.

Day 38

9.55 // 558.5

This campsite was wonderful. Everyone had their own little tent spot. And the little kitchen area was very sweet. We left the campsite at about 6:30 AM. We needed to hike 10 miles down the hill to the road where Damn Derick‘s friend, Trail Angel Kristin, was bringing her van to pick us up. It was a nice morning. Sunny. Exposed. And MANY windmills. It did get up into the 90s. We made it to the road at around 10 AM. Kristin was there shortly after. She brought two coolers with watermelon, homemade protein bars, water, and Cokes. We rested and ate there for a little bit and then pilled into the van and rode into town. We picked up packages from another trail angel and went to TK Pizza and Pasta. It was great to be in the air conditioning. We ate well and hydrated. Then we went to the hotel and checked in, took showers, did laundry, rested, caught up on the blog, and met everyone for sushi at 7 PM. It is really nice to be in town, to be clean, and we are looking forward to our zero day tomorrow.

Happy trails,

Julie

@JulieandBobgoforahike