Spiraling with the Windmills: An Escape from the Desert

Walking across the LA aquaduct was the first time I felt like a true PCT thru-hiker. Walking through countless windmill farms was the sixth-fifth time I debated if this was even worth it. Walking out of the desert … walking out of the desert was the first time I felt genuinely excited to hike since I started the PCT.

Cursed Hikertown

Lovechild and I walked into the liminal dystopian experience that is Hikertown around noon. It had a strange western theme to it — about thirty small ramshackle shacks with western style storefronts paralleled each other on a field of dead grass. Some said “city hall” or “doctor’s office” or “saloon.” The saloon had a flag with Niki Minaj saluting with the American Flag in the background pasted to the window. She seemed trapped. Several abandoned toys were strewn across the doorsteps of the storefronts. I went into the bathroom only to be swarmed with flies from the toilet. A cockroach skittered around in the sink, unable to escape. I sat with Lovechild in the shade of the saloon. We shared a grimace.

And then! Our friends Georgia and Emma (now with trail names Eavesdrop and Forgot It) appeared out of the alleyway next to where Lovechild and I were sitting. Huzzah! We weren’t alone in this strange place! And so — we promptly got vortexed into staying overnight at the Wee Ville Market (a convenience store down the road with less liminal vibes than Hikertown) in order to night hike the aquaduct together.

Hiker Sherades

There wasn’t much to do there. And that was the beauty of it. About twelve of us — Soda Pop, Mia, Steph, Isabell and friends gathered around at tables inside the convenience store and played sherades for hours while finishing a half gallon of ice cream. We invented Hiker Trash Sherades — like regular sherades except with hiker trash activities all thrown into a hat on scraps of paper for your dirty hands to grab. So, of course, digging a cat hole is thrown into the hat about five times. And I mixed in a “shitting yourself” for good measure.

And then the moment we had all been waiting for — the aquaduct. The sun set over fields of golden grass. Water rushed beside us in a man made concrete-bordered river. Suddenly — a giant rusty pipe appeared, half submerged in the desert floor. The aquaduct!!!! I screamed, “F*CK YEAH!!!!! IT’S PIPE TIME!!!!!” And stepped out onto it. Eavesdrop, Forgot It and Lovechild were desperate to not be behind me — the much dreaded fart zone. A trail of hikers formed behind us; everyone that we had stayed with at the Wee Vill Market from the night before. Joshua trees hunched in the wind. Everyone’s footsteps in line with one another, silhouetted against the setting sun, walking northward. It was the first time I felt like a thru-hiker on the PCT.

And then the sun set and everything turned terrible. It’s demoralizing watching your footfalls in a tiny circle of light. Over and over and over again they fall before you in the inky dark. Sometimes small desert rats hop like tiny kangaroos away from your feet. The stars appeared above us. It was one of the most beautiful night skies I’ve seen in my life. It might be hell during the day — but the desert’s sky at night is breathtaking. Our four headlamps pierced into the darkness ahead of us. Talking about our lives and laughing at the absurdity of walking along a giant pipe made my feet hurt less.

Forgot It and Eavesdrop took a break to sit on the side of trail and wound up falling asleep directly on the ground. Lovechild and I pushed on to the wind farms where we attempted to set up our tarp for the second time in forty mile an hour winds. Clearly the wind farms were not farming nearly enough wind. The tarp whipped around wildly as we staked it down, blindly stabbing stakes in the red lights of our headlamps. Eventually we got it up and crawled on top of our tyvek inside. I sighed, relieved. In a few seconds, I turned to look at the ground beside me only to realize it was crawling. Ants! Ahhhh shit. I moaned and put my head in my hands. “There’s ants.” I told Lovechild. “What do you want to do about it? We can move if you want.” “Uuuuuugh.” “Do you want to move?” “Aaaaaannntssss. Uuughhhhh.” And so on it went for about fifteen minutes before I gave up and went to sleep.

Spiraling With the Windmills

It wouldn’t be the first windmill farm we went through. As we walked through the third windmill farm, between the monotone thwup thwup thwup of the blades, all I could think was, “what the hell am I doing out here?” The sun blazed down on Lovechild and I. My heels ached. The bottoms of my feet were on fire. I threw myself down under the shade of a shrub.

Lovechild joined shortly after. “Will we even make it to Canada?” We asked eachother. It was too early to tell. A couple weeks ago we wouldn’t even think of doing more then fifteen miles, and now we were barely up to twenties. It felt so futile as hikers zoomed by us doing thirties or more. I physically couldn’t go farther because my feet started flaring up in pain relentlessly. At the end of some days I would hobble into camp. I felt like I was holding Lovechild back at times. Like I was ruining his hike and our mileage because of my physical ailments. He’d always be behind me, reassuring me that this was our thru-hike together and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

The windmills spun on in the almost nonexistent wind. The desert just didn’t interest me as much. It was beautiful at sunrise and sunset — but I missed trees. I didn’t anticipate missing the Appalachian Trail so much. This trail was awesome and strangely unique but it wasn’t quite home — yet.

Finding a Home

I would come to realize eventually that it would never be home like the east coast was. It didn’t have to be. I could have multiple homes throughout my life — it wasn’t worth comparing them. Although the desert didn’t have as much sentimental value — it allowed me to hike in a completely new environment and see some of the coolest lizards I ever have. The harsh environment made it all the more incredible when I was scooping water from a pond and realizing that frogs were burrowing onto the side of the pond in the mud, small strange centipede creatures wriggled up and down from the surface of the water, water bugs drifted across the pond and tadpoles wriggled through the muck. I was delighted every time I stopped by to soak my feet in the cold water. Nature always finds a way to persist, and so would I.

The desert landscape may have been barren, but the true richness was in the people I met. Most people I met were from out of the country. We sat in a circle in the speckled shade of a desert tree and clustered in the underneath the arms of shrubs.

We were all making cold soaked ramen with our dirty feet in the sand and laughing about the differences in languages. Lorenzo spent fifteen minutes attempting to describe how to say g-string in Italian while Freebie and Beck from Australia listened intently and giggled with Platinum from Seattle (not a different country but a fun place!) Ronnie from Israel dozed off next to Noro V from North Carolina (also not different country haha but a nostalgic place for me) and KitKat and Soda from Japan ate ramen with chopsticks. Everyone from a different country — but all walking along the same trail with the same two legs and seeing the same beautiful mountains. It’s incredible to be united with people from all around the world.

Grumpy Bear’s Fart Container

We arrived at Grumpy’s — the first stop before the Sierra begin, which is a half-bar half-hostel place with incredible pizza and burgers and free camping (and laundry and showers!), so basically hiker heaven.

It was was the epicenter of logistic mental breakdowns. There was hikers trying to jam all their ramens and tunas into a bear can; hikers worrying if they’d need crampons or an ice axe; hikers scratching their heads at the map of spots to exit trail for a resupply point. And there was also six of us crowded around Beck’s sleeping pad as we poured soap and water onto it, desperately trying to find the hole in it. And finally — after hours of probing the yellow fabric — Nora V found it!!

As we all resupplied at Triple Crown Outfitters — basically a shipping container that is an awesome resource for any hiker losing their mind going into the Sierra — I filled up the entire container with farts. While I was standing behind Freebie, I let out a particularly rancid one. The girl running the shop and checking Freebie out at the cash register wrinkled her nose. She looked at me. “That’s gross — was that him?” I laughed a bit. And nodded my head. After he left, she even opened the door and shook her head too. I couldn’t stop laughing. Outside, Freebie heckled me for gaslighting the cashier. As we all tried to jam our various items into our too small bear cans, I realized I felt just as at home out here as I did on the Appalachian Trail. All it took was a couple good friends, a half deflated sleeping pad, a fart container and an escape from the desert.