PCT Day 47 - Cowboy and Hail

Last night I cowboy camped for the first time, this is when you camp without a tent under only a sleeping bag and of course the stars. The night was clear, moonless, warm in comparison to most nights we've on trail. I laid down at twilight before the first star peeked out of the darkening sky. The first one I saw was in fact the planet Jupiter and it would be 20 minutes at least before another one appeared. By the time an hour had past the sky was full of stars and I drifted off to sleep. I woke up around 1am to discover the Milky Way was now visible as well. Over the next two hours I gazed above and observed Jupiter along with Saturn moving westward in the sky, the planets really stand out if one stares at the night sky long enough. By 4:30am the stars had begun to extinguish one by one for the day as the sun marched towards the horizon. After breakfast and breaking camp we begun the days hike. We are starting to take it slow as we have less than 100 miles before we jump off trail in 8 days. We went 12 miles which included another major incline. We got to our first water source by 1:30pm and relaxed the rest of the day before setting the tent up early, thankfully we did so as a stormed rolled in quickly and it started to hail!

-Joe

PCT Day 46 - Slack Pack

There's been talk of "Slack Pack" since we started our hike into Tehachapi. I've read there is an 8 mile stretch between the two major roads into Tehachapi where hikers leave their gear in town and hike the 8 miles with 'slack packs'. I've been very interested in doing this- 8 miles could potentially be a half day, so why not hike half the day with a light load?

So when Firefly and Anchor told us that they were doing it in the morning, I immediately told them I wanted to join.

Lisa a Trail Angel in town picked us up with our light packs at 7:30 from the hotel and dropped us off where we got off trail. We hiked those 8 miles so quick, about 3 hours!

Lisa then came and picked us up and return us to our hotel where all our gear and food was.

Back in town Joe and I hit up the Burger Spot and discussed the potential of hitting the trail in a couple hours. By this point we've been in town nearly 48 hours so I was all for making a break for it.

We went back to the room and packed up our gear- holy moly, my pack was so heavy. How did everything fit? Oh and I still had to add 8 pounds of water! Wow its so heavy, too heavy. My pack may break? Rip? Oh dear - I hope not! It is nearly impossible for me pick up and strap on. I am suddenly loathing the idea of going back to the desert.

We say our goodbyes to Firefly, Bluebird and everyone else and got a hitch back to the trail around 3pm.

Our hike out was flat and along side the highway for a couple miles, then the steep incline began. I was SO slow, and quickly out of breath. My pack! Ugg, can I do this? I can do this.

Since we were on trail super late, we decided to keep the mileage light and only go 4-5 miles. We found an ideal spot surrounded by Joshua Trees and overlooking the desert floor; Tehachapi and the Mojave way down below. It was a very pleasant evening, we camped with no fly on the tent and Joe even cowboy camped for the first time.

-Madelyn

PCT Day 45 - Zero in Tehachapi

We decided to splurge and stay in a hotel in town- The Sure Stay. We woke up 6am, went down for breakfast around 7am, then brainstormed over our next resupply needs, and started our errands.

First we went to the post office to retrieve some packages- a resupply box from Jan and John (thanks Jan and Pappy!) and an order of protein from Amazing Grass.

Then we went to the grocery stores to pick up the remaining food needed, lunch and then to a sporting goods store to get adhesive to patch our air pads.

Daniel the Trail Angel told us of the Thursday night Farmers Market in Old Town Tehachapi, which we went to for a couple hours before our dinner with trail friends.

Dinner was great- it was at a local steakhouse with our best friends from the trail: Firefly, Hawkeye, Bluebird, Smiles, Roam, Anchor (prev. Late Bird), Fab and Saskia.

Tomorrow we are slack packing with Firefly and Anchor, and I am so excited. I was able to talk Joe into it!

Regarding our resupply: Walker Pass is our next stop for resupply which is 96 miles out. So we know we need at least 5 days of food. However, we are jumping off trail for a week and need to be in LA by June 9th. And that's still 8 days from now. We decided to stay on trail for those 8 days so we can minimize our city expenses. We will be carrying an 8 day resupply. We've never carried that much food, and I worry it won't all fit in our packs! That's A LOT of food. :(

-Madelyn

PCT Day 44 - BLUES, Game 1

So, we were definitely out of the wind last night, but we still got an occasional gust. And because of this our tent squeaked for the first time all night! It was so bad that we both had to wear earplugs, and even then I doubt we got more than 5 hours sleep. This isn't good considering we had a big climb, and 18 miles to go until Tehachapi (for the Blues game at 5pm).

Today's hike was 4 miles of pretty flat, 4 miles of climbing, then the last 10 miles of a bit of both but mostly downhill.

At the top of the climb there was Daniel, a trail angel! At the top he had tables and chairs with sun umbrellas, and gave us all apples! it was a great retreat to sit, chat and enjoy our lunch and apples!

Daniel is a well known TA in Tehachapi, we will end up seeing him a couple more times.

We made it down to the Willow Springs Rd about 5pm - we caught an easy hitch to town. We got dropped off a pizza restaurant that has plenty of TV's for us to watch the Blues on. The Blues won!

Big news- this stretch to Tehachapi is the end of the SoCal portion of the PCT! Next up is the Sierra section.

-Madelyn

PCT Day 43 - LA Aqueduct

Today's weather is high of 65, a perfect temperature to hike the Mojave in! And since the weather today is going to perfectly cool we decided to hang around Hikertown a bit later not departing until 10am (after saying goodbye to the kitties).

We got up and dressed at 6:30am, went to the shared kitchen (garage) and made pancakes, oatmeal and coffee. We tested our pads over night, and not to our surprise there were new holes as they were both leaking. They weren't even used last night!

The trail today was flat for a good 18 miles, it followed the LA Aqueduct; sometimes we'd even walk on it.

Around mile 14 we came to a wind farm where of course, it was windy. Walking around the metal giants was so futuristic. The mountains in the distance with lingering low clouds pouring over like dry ice towards the wind farm.

Our first water source was 17 miles in, we refilled, scoped out the tent sites, decided to not stay because of the wind, and pushed on another 5 miles (with the hope we'd be out of the wind).

We heard the Blues are in the Stanley Cup Final, so Joe and I hatched out a plan to get to the next town a day early which would mean we need to put out high miles... starting now.

The 5 extra miles we decided to push for will bring our days total to 22.7. But it was not easy. The last 5 miles took us closer and higher up the mountains we had seen from the start of the day. When the wind started getting to me I decided to count the rows of wind turbines, 7.

7 rows left.

Still 7 left.

The windmills were not passing in a hurry, even though I was hiking as fast as I could.

Then after a couple short intense climbs there were 3 rows left!

We finally got to a tent site on the other side of one of the first mountains. It was in a deep valley so the wind wasn't to bad. The site was pretty spectacular, someone had built a low rock wall to help with wind protection.

PCT Day 42 - Hikertown

We were better this morning, although it was still raining we got plenty of rest last night (even though our sleeping pads won't stay inflated). We got out of camp around 8am, we put our wet clothes and shoes back on and hit the trail. Today we are really looking forward to Hikertown. :)

Hikertown is similar to Casa de Luna and Hiker Heaven. It's a small property right on trail that has "cabins" for rent. There is a C-Store a few miles off trail and the Angels at Hikertown can give you rides to get food. Note, there is no "town" here, only a small store.

Hiking as fast as we could, we made it into Hikertown and finally the sun came out.

At the property we ran into Kermit, Rooster, Charm, Bean Dip, Sia and Speedberry. We chatted with them for a good while, while they packed and readied to hike out.

Joe and I decided to stay at Hikertown- pay the $25 to stay in a cabin with a shared bathroom. It was not glamorous by any means. It was more like glamping. We did sleep on a bed, but we had to use our sleeping bags.

Tomorrow is the Mojave portion- it's notoriously known as the hottest and driest section of the PCT. Because of this I've been watching the weather, after tomorrow the temps will be climbing, therefore we will make our start then.

After we settled in we got a ride to the C-store and had lunch- a bacon burger and fries. We hung out with Hawkeye, Smiles, Ruth, Saskia and few other hikers we just met that day at Hikertown.

We put a little work in by attempting to patch our sleeping pads. Joe and I each had 5 holes to repair!

-Madelyn

PCT Day 41 - 5 0 0

Last night we camped at Saw Mill Campground, its a semi popular campground accessible by both road and trail. When Joe and I hiked in close to sunset there were already 7 or 8 tents; all PCT hikers. We were all crammed into a small area near the privy, it provided some relief from the wind that started up over night.

We did not sleep well, rain came along with the wind and it was once more relentless. The privy did not provide much protection, unfortunately. Due to our lack of sleep and motivation to pack up during the storm, we stayed in the tent until 11am. 11am! Most hikers would have had 14 miles done already!

By 11:30 we were back on trail and we had tent sites in 13 miles on our mind. Already we were looking forward to this day coming to an end.

The trail cut along the wind free eastern side of the northbound ridge for a short .5 mile, then cut over to the gusty western ridge. Once we made the switch we immediately got slammed with the wind and rain. Not only was it drizzling, but the rain was blowing the rain from the nearby trees and brush. It was miserable, and it was like this for at least 8 miles. Then finally some relief, we cut back over to the eastern side of the ridge where it was just foggy and misting. I had to keep my pace up due to how cold I was, everything I wore was drenched. My rain jacket did not hold up very well, my socks and fleece gloves were completely soaked through, our hoods never came down. But something exciting- we passed the 500 mile marker!

We had two ascents today up to 6k feet, then back down to 5k feet, then back up, then down down down. On the way down, the last 4 miles, we were teased with sunny hillsides in the distance. Joe said, "The clouds are going to break soon", it didn't.

At one point the clouds above gave us a glimpse of blue sky, but seconds later it closed up and it poured. This occurred a few times during that hike down.

When we got off the ridge, we had a water source- a small creek. We were soon on the hunt for a camp site. The trail quickly led us to an unlined blacktop road, we looked left then right, and started to cross. We noticed a truck parked on the side just 30 yards away and the driver was waving at us. I waved back and continued crossing. The driver started yelling at us "Hey, you guys like Bananas?" Sweet! Trail magic!

After chatting with an angel for a few minutes we were back on the search for a place to camp.

While we were making camp the rain paused, we were very hopeful of the rain clearing out, we even set our wet gear outside the tent to dry- we would still have a few hours of daylight left. But as we were sitting in the tent changing into dry clothes- the rain started up again.  After we scrambled out to get wet gear from the ground, we settled with the awful weather and made hot potatoes and spam. We deserved spam this day. Anything to take our mind off the miserable wet and cold. Silver lining= no wind.


-Madelyn