6/14 Mojave to Kennedy Meadows

I stayed in Mojave for 3 days to rest my feet. I did the one mile walk in on the first day, slack-packed* 8 miles of trail the second day, and hiked out late on the third day. Shout out to Jetta Blue, the most dedicated and hiker-loving trail angel out here. Jetta, you are amazing, and Mojave/Tehachapi is lucky to have you. Can't wait for your 2017 thru hike! I fly Jetta Blue.

*slack-packing is when you hike a section without a full pack, so someone drops you off and picks you up and all you have to carry is water. It RULES.

Mojave was cheap and really enjoyable, but also had quite a bit of drama for me. I don't want to go into too much, but essentially there was a male hiker who confessed that he had feelings for me, and made me feel really uncomfortable and afraid to be around him. It didn't escalate into anything problematic, but he was manipulative, disrespectful, and inappropriate in the way he addressed the situation to me, and in the end I told him to leave. Fortunately, I had other hikers nearby who I trusted, and they let me stay with them and kept me safe until he was gone.

Ladies out there, do me and yourselves a huge favor. Don't ever let a guy tell you who you are and how you feel. Don't ever let yourself be controlled that way. No man has the right to assume power over you. We are women, and we are strong as hell, and a man can't take that from us. Some will fear us or call us crazy, but all should respect us. Girl power is a thing to be reckoned with.

Anyway, after all that, I hiked out with people that I knew and trusted, in case I ran into that guy again. This last stretch of desert up to Kennedy Meadows was really challenging, since it was my longest stretch between towns yet at 150 miles, and it was through the hottest, driest stretch of desert. We hiked at night mostly, to stay cool, and actually it was really beautiful (stargazing, meteors, shooting stars, city lights below) and only a little scary (demon cow that was standing on the trail in front of me, scared the crap out of me, and wouldn't move away...he just stared at me with his big reddish eyes...*shudders*). We had half our food and a few gallons of water dropped off for us by Jetta Blue's son about halfway through a 45 mile waterless stretch. He camped out up there with his girlfriend to wait for us, and when we arrived the next morning he grilled hotdogs for all the hikers and provided beer and sodas and shelter from the...wait for it...RAIN. I know. You thought I was going to say "sun" or "heat". But no. It rained while I was walking through the Mojave desert. Three times. Lots of thunder and lightning storms too, it was actually quite awesome.

Thunderstorms in the desert



Rain on the Kern River

Other things that happened this week: I saw a bear! I almost stepped on a rattlesnake. I jumped into a river. I hiked 42 miles with an oncoming case of pretty gnarly strep throat. I got attacked by ants in my sleep. I started hiking with someone new. I reached the 700 mile mark, more than one quarter of the trail completed.

It's a snake!

Forest cowboy camp sunrise

Desert sunrise

Desert ascents

The best part about this week was watching the desert turn into the Sierras. They call it the "Range of Light" for a reason.

Cloudy on the last stretch of desert into the high mountains, near mile 700

A close second was the standing ovation we got as we walked up to the Kennedy Meadows general store, where more than a hundred of our hiker friends were hanging out, getting psyched for the ascent into the high country.

I am resting in town right now. I went to see the doctor about my throat, which was so painful and swollen this morning it hurt even to drink water. Doc says I probably have strep, so I'm on antibiotics and instructions to rest for a minimum of two days to let the treatment kick in. Once I start feeling better I'll be back on the trail again!

Get excited, because my next post will probably include my ascent up Mt Whitney!!! 14,000 feet up wahoo!!!

6/5 Agua Dulce to Mojave

This was a very different week. I hiked out of Agua Dulce and had a few days of really nice cowboy camping and cooler weather. I made a pact with my feet as I walked away, that I would massage them, elevate them, and provide them with adequate dosages of Vitamin I (ibuprofen) if they would carry me only as far as Mojave, where my new shoes were waiting. Their response was muddled, but I decided to assume that they had begrudgingly agreed.

Sunrise from a cowboy camping spot on a ridge

I walked slowly and mostly at night. It was pretty enjoyable. I enjoyed a day of rest at a trail angel haven called Casa de Luna, hanging out with the hiker trash. The next morning, a friend of the hikers, a very expressive Russian named Vlad, drove up and yelled, "Who wants to go to Malibu?!"

I raised my hand, and before I knew it, I was crammed in the back of his Explorer and me and three other hikers were on our way to the Pacific Ocean!

It wasn't your typical California beach scene. It was cold, windy, a little stormy. The beach was flecked with small chunks of crude oil and feathers from an oil spill in Santa Barbara the week before. It was sobering, but we still enjoyed ourselves. I did yoga on the beach to stretch out my muscles and relax.

Solid crude oil deposits

It stains your feet when you walk on it

Pit stop on the drive back for some California strawberries!!!

Despite my efforts to go easy on my feet, particularly my left foot which would twinge painfully in warning a few times every day, when it came time to leave Casa de Luna I felt it would be dangerous for me to hike long miles for the next few days. There was a 12 mile road walk detour coming up, and I had no intention of dragging my feet along that unforgiving surface in the hot desert sun. Instead of risking it, I jumped on a ride up to a place called Hikertown, just past the road walk.

Hikertown was strange. It was like walking onto the set of an extremely low budget old western film that was abandoned, resumed again about 10 years later, abandoned again, reopened as a historical tourist attraction about low budget old western filmmaking, and finally deserted due to lack of interest and profitability before coming into the realm of hikers. The whole place consisted of a house, garage, an array of sheds and trailers decorated to look like the wild wild west, chickens, and every fly in the Mojave desert. It was magical. The manager was kind and accommodating, and said things like "If you catch a chicken, I'll kill it and roast it for ya, but try to make it one of the roosters." In his defence, they do crow an awful lot. I spent my time there sleeping on a rusty old truck bed, hiding from the sun under the one tree, and watching cock fights erupt spontaneously.

Needless to say, though I enjoyed the extra rest and entertainment, I was happy to finally hike out and be back on the trail for real. I hiked out with a few other hikers and we headed down the aqueduct and into the night. It was a full moon, so it was bright enough that we didn't need headlamps. We walked into wind farm country. Huge turbines towered over us as we walked under their silhouettes. The wind picked up too, for some reason...

The aqueduct!

Hiking by the full moon, through the Joshua trees

And then the wind really picked up. I was hiking with a guy named Coyote, and the two of us hiked 22 miles in hurricane speed winds. The wind came from every direction, and it knocked us about constantly, whistling about our heads and trying to catch our packs behind us and send us flying off the mountain. It was kind of scary actually, trying to balance on a ridge in the wind under the moonlit shadows of wind turbines. The cliff was pretty sheer, so we had to hike until almost 2 AM before we found a spot that was decent enough to camp, a little gully tucked down in the sage brush a few feet below the trail. It was cramped and we kept sliding down the hill in our sleep, but we woke up to an easy mile into town and an awesome view.

So windy!!!

Coyote: "Here I am, walking through a hurricane"

Windmills in the morning sun

The view I woke up to from our bivy site in the sage brush