PCT Thru-hike #9: Not So Wild
Thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail was a life-changing experience for Arthur and Jill. This is our story.
Follow the PCT thru-hike adventure from the beginning and hike with us to mile 2,650.
Tehachapi and Trail Celebrities
Written by Jill
We woke up covered in sand for the second time on trail — at least this time less found its way into my mouth! Since we had such a big day yesterday there were only 13 miles to Willow Springs Road and a ride to Tehachapi where we planned on zeroing. The next stretch to Kennedy Meadows is a longer one without town stops so we want to take advantage of Tehachapi.
After a few miles we finished the uphill we had started yesterday and then stumbled upon a cache with water and chairs!
We ended up hiking through another wind farm. Tehachapi has the largest wind farm in the world.
Then something very exciting for me happened — I met two hiking celebrities! GoalTech is a section hiker who was heading southbound and handing out trail magic in the form of chips and other goodies. He was doing a week of the section we had just hiked and Rockin’, another famous hiker, had joined him on his second day. Rockin’ and GoalTech both personally knew Wired, a triple crown hiker and the inspiration for me to hike the PCT. Tomtit witnessed my starstruck blabbering when I realized who was coming up the trail. We both got a bag a chips and a can of coke — so cool!
The last few miles flew by and soon I was standing on the road, salivating over thoughts of Taco Bell. Four cars passed by, but the fifth one stopped and took us the 11 miles straight to the Tehachapi Taco Bell. We ordered three burritos each.
Our motel was a mile and a half away so we started walking. A few minutes later a truck pulled over and offered to take us the rest of the way there, so we hopped in! The rest of the day consisted of laundry, eating, and going to the movies. We are staying in the Santa Fe Motel tomorrow night as well to make tomorrow a zero : )
Not So Wild
Written by Jill
We woke up this morning knowing we needed to get out of the town vortex — the appeal of food and Internet can keep a person in town for days. There were a few things we needed to take to the post office, but it was a mile and a half from our hotel, so a taxi was required.
The phone call went like this:
“Hello?”
“Hi uh…is this the taxi service?”
“Yes.”
“Ok, can we get a taxi from the Santa Fe motel to the post office?”
“Yep.”
And then he hung up. Weirdest taxi company I had ever called. The taxi showed up ten minutes later. Amir and I hopped in. We were in the post office for a few minutes and then got back to the hotel in a flash. The taxi driver said that our trail angels were more like devils to him since they gave free rides, which made me feel a little bad.
Back at the hotel, Tomtit and I packed up everything and were ready to head out by 11. We’d heard there were really good brisket sandwiches at a barbecue place on the way out of town, so we stopped there for lunch. The sandwiches were great! While we were eating we discussed how we were going to get back to the trail head on Tehachapi Willow Springs Road. Most of the traffic going through town was headed for highway 58 and we needed to go in another direction down a side road. Tomtit and I finished eating and decided to try a walking hitch for 2.5 miles (even though our packs weighed a ton from the resupply), but before we made it a half-mile a lady in a van asked us if we needed a ride! She wasn’t even going out of town and still drove us 11 miles to the trail head — unbelievable! We thanked her profusely when she dropped us off. Our friend Zog was actually there at the trailhead trying to get a ride to Tehachapi, so he jumped in the van and she gave him a ride there. The whole thing worked out great!
We were slow going with our elephant sized packs when we finally started walking. Not far from the trailhead I thought I had heard a bird, and then turned to look and spotted a different creature than I had expected. It looked like a deer, but it was a little different. I wondered if there were antelope in the Mojave. We hiked an easy eight miles to a highway with lots of windmills surrounding us. The highway was in sight as we switchbacked downhill toward it.
Jaybird caught up to us and we had a good chat as we crossed over the highway together. We got to the other side and Jaybird pointed out that we were standing where Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, began her hike. The trail followed the highway for about two miles and I had fun waving to the truckers — the ones who saw me waved or honked back : ) Another mile took us to the start of a good sized climb.
The wind picked up and we’d had enough hiking for the day (a short eleven miles for a nearo), so we found a big juniper bush to hide our tent behind. Tomorrow we’ll continue on and I hope that there is water at the upcoming Golden Oak Spring — if not we’ll have another 18 miles beyond that to go to get water!
Windmills near Tehachapi
Butt Sap
Written by Arthur
Our tent was well protected by the juniper bush, keeping us safe from most of the wind throughout the night. But the wind kicked our butts once we started hiking. It was exhausting.
The wind’s power dissipated as the day went on, and the afternoon weather turned out to be quite nice. We had sights of the desert and the town of Mojave to one side, and forested hills on the other.
The day was pretty uneventful. The scenery didn’t change much (read: still more windmills everywhere) and we saw very few people.
This portion of the trail was very dry, and water sources were many many miles from one another. We reached our planned source, Golden Oak Spring, and finally ran into a few other people. We met Cosmic Bubble and Dingo who were a couple about our age from Colorado, and an older man called Thermometer from South Korea who hardly spoke any English.
It was nice to chat and mime with a few other hikers for a bit as we all ate some lunch and filled our water containers. Cow and horse poop was all around the half full trough, and we could see worms and other things moving around in the water. Luckily the pipe from the spring hung above the trough it poured into, so we were able to collect some clean and pure water. We moved on and walked through yet another burned forest (seems like Southern California’s wilderness has gone through quite a lot of fires in the past decade). There was a touch of poodle dog bush again, but not much.
After making some more miles we noticed the wind had picked up again, and we were getting hungry. We found a well protected spot just beyond the burnt forest. We pitched our tent under a few trees and ate some dinner. Overall it was an easy going day and we still made about 24 miles.
Low, wide branches made comfortable sitting for a dinner spot. We shared ruffled chips, trail mix, granola bars, mozzarella string cheese sticks, strawberry shortbread cookies, and some instant peach Snapple. Not a bad meal at all! When we were done and I went to stand up I had a little trouble. I had basically peeled my butt off of the branch. My shorts were covered in tree sap. Not only do they have a small tear, but now a big, permanent, brown stain in absolutely the worst location. Sigh. Guess it’s time to get another pair.
Robins and Lupines
Written by Jill
It was 8 o’clock by the time we got rolling this morning. I could tell today was goning to be a slow day. There was a large climb waiting for us and I felt like I was dreaming as we slowly marched uphill in the increasing heat. It turned out to be worth it, though. The grass gave way to a gorgeous forest. We stopped to sit on a rock for a while to soak in the forest-y-ness. The air was moist and the shade was pleasant.
After a while we got back up and kept going. There was a ridge looking down on some farm buildings and we decided to try our luck with cell service — success! We sat there for the better part of an hour making phone calls and doing Internet things. Eventually we had to keep hiking. We had camped at mile 593 last night so we knew we’d hit the 600 mile mark this morning : )
Two miles after that was Robin Bird Spring, our water source for the day. The first bird I saw there was a robin, no joke! Tomtit grabbed three liters from the pipe that funneled water out of the ground. We sat on a covered horse trough nearby and made lunch. Mine was this Rice-a-Roni cheesy rice thing that turned out pretty good, and Tomtit had trail mix, fig newtons, and cheese crackers.
Tomtit pulled up the map and pointed out a campsite ten miles from Robin Bird Spring as a goal for the evening. The trail continued to wind through beautiful pine forest. The last two miles went through a burned area, but it was the most luscious we had walked through. The ground was vibrant with wildflowers and huge rocks dotted the landscape.
I was strolling through like a tourist taking pictures of everything. We made it to our campsite less than a mile outside of the burn. It was a slow, but beautiful day.
Water
Written by Arthur
We slept in until 6:45am (whaaat?!), which may be the latest we’ve slept in on the trail. I was only awoken and inspired to get things going because I had heard someone else hike by on the trail near our tent site. We both felt refreshed after about 11 hours of sleep. Yesterday was tiring, but today we felt golden.
The day started easy with five miles of downhill. We walked out of the pines and back down into the yucca and joshua trees of the desert. The dry sands were accented with many colorful little flowers. The trail was beautiful. What goes down must go up, and so we did. The going was easy with our newfound energy, and we said hello to a herd of cows which were hidden in the shade of all the joshua trees.
We reached a road where we knew our fun and easy times would be at an end. With no water left in our packs, we marched down a dirt road, eliminating all the elevation we had gained, and had to find a reportedly broken spring 1.5 miles out of our way. On the way down we ran into Cosmic Bubble and Dingo who tried to give us some direction. The spring was hard to find, and when you found it apparently it was hard to figure out where to collect the water. We followed their direction, but got lost anyway. We noticed that all footprints had disappeared other than our own, so we must have walked past it.
After some backtracking and scrabbling through the bushes we saw a big metal trough off to the side of the road. There was nothing but wet green mush inside the trough, and the spigot wouldn’t work. We wound up having to walk uphill from the trough, climb under some barbed wire, walk around a scummy marsh, navigate a maze of small trails, and uncover a huge manhole type lid which covered a half-empty cistern.
Oh, and next to the cistern? A note. The author asked all future hikers to please fully cover the cistern with the lid. Why? Because the day before we arrived another hiker had to fish out a dead mouse and dead rat from the cistern. Great. Dead rat water for us!
So we filtered, and boy did we filter. This was going to be our biggest water carry yet. From this rat water it was another 43 miles to the next spring. We wound up leaving with 14 liters of water between us, and that’s another 31 pounds in our packs!
The uphill road walk back to the PCT was the most difficult 1.5 miles either of us had ever put on our feet. It was hard, hard walking. My shirt was drenched in sweat. Thankfully once we made it back to the trail there was a picnic table where we were able to rest and eat lunch, overlooking a lower plane of the Mojave.
A couple more ups and downs through the rest of the day had our backs and hips aching from the weight of our packs, but the desert offered us splendid views and even a light drizzle of rain to encourage us onward. There were so many motocross trails in the area that it was difficult to follow the actual PCT, but we never did lose our way.
At about 5:30pm we reached a tentsite nestled behind some trees and big rocks. We were in a mountain pass, so the winds were strong, but our tent was protected well enough by the landscape. With a 1500ft climb right in front of us, we thought it would be best to rest down low for the night. We were just too tired to keep going.
With four days until we hit town and 34 more miles until water we had to conserve our resources. Dinner was a little light and we were a bit thirsty, but it’s better to ration than run out!
Working hard for that rat water. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Ridge Walking to Walker Pass
Written by Arthur
The wind stayed through the night, and dark clouds had rolled in. We hid from the elements behind a big rock as we ate breakfast.
Our big uphill challenge of the day was right in front of us. One step at a time we heaved ourselves up the rocky cliff, wind and fog bouncing off our shoulders. The clouds surrounded us as we scaled the peak, causing the trees to drip dew down upon us.
But the trail soon descended a bit, and we walked along mountain ridges most of the day, just under the clouds of the darkening skies above us.
We hiked all day with barely a break. The need to outrace the storm clouds was priority. At one point we walked along a dirt road atop a mountaintop plain, and 3 dudes on motorbikes sped past us, heading towards the curtain of rain in front of us.
The edge of the rain clouds finally caught up with us, and we had to don our rain gear as we sped downhill to Walker Pass Campground.
At the campground was a trail angel by the name of Meadow Ed, and an infamous hiker and trail angel named Legend. They waved us over and fed us chips and soda. Our plan was to move onward a few more miles as it was still mid afternoon, but they lulled us in with the promise of a spaghetti and salad dinner.
More hikers showed throughout the evening, and Ed was disappointed that he wasn’t seeing more. He was staying all through Memorial Day weekend to feed hungry hikers, and he was hoping to see 50 a day! We stuffed ourselves, not only with the awesome food Ed provided, but also with some Little Ceasar’s pizza another hiker had brought back from his trip into town.
We’re now set to take on the last 60 miles to Kennedy Meadows. This sure was trail magic, and a huge morale boost. What a long stretch of complete wilderness we had been in, and such a little slice of civilization sure did make a huge difference.
Rollercoaster Mountains
Written by Jill
Tomtit and I woke up to a drenched tent this morning. It rained at the Walker Pass Campground for an hour yesterday. The ground was a little wet, and add that to two closed vestibule doors and two hikers breathing all night you’ll get a tent coated with condensation. I carry the tent in an outside pocket on my pack, and when the tent is soaking wet (it’s happened twice before) the pocket drips water down my back all day. So, we chose to stay at the campground for a while this morning to dry the tent and have some of Meadow Ed’s trail magic breakfast. I am astounded at the amount I can eat now. Before the hike, a bagel and cream cheese would be plenty for breakfast. This morning I had that, plus a banana, a donut, coffee, and a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I was hungry an hour later.
Meadow Ed is a fascinating guy — he’s been trail angeling for 22 years and he had some stories to tell. Tomtit and I both helped cook dinner and clean up last night, and we both put money in the donation jar to help with the cost of all the food we ate : ) It was definitely magical trail magic!
Since we waited around for the tent to dry, we didn’t leave the campground until 9:30. Then we discovered we had service right as we left camp, so we hunkered down on the side of the road to update our blog. We didn’t start hiking until ten o’clock. But it was a great morning!
A 2200 foot climb awaited us once we got going. We both felt pretty good from the shorter day yesterday and made short work of the eight miles. Then we dropped all the way back down 2200 feet in five miles. Then up 700 and down 700 in the space of four miles.
At the bottom of the little mountain was a good water source, Spanish Needle Creek, where I was ready to stop. On the last two mile descent my very dirty sock had started to rub on the underside of my toes on my right foot. My foot was burning and very painful. After we got our water it was a short half mile to a potential camp site — which someone had already taken. The next spot was three miles uphill, 1200 feet. Sigh.
It was 6:20, so Tomtit and I set to hustling up the third mountain of the day. I sent Tomtit ahead to grab a tent site while I hobbled up the trail. I rolled in at 7:40 and he had picked a very nice sheltered spot for us to camp tonight. We ended up doing a 21 mile day, which isn’t bad considering we left camp at 10 : ) That leaves us with 29 miles to Kennedy Meadows!
Chimney Creek Campground
Written by Jill
Another hiker made it to the top last night after Tomtit and I were already tented. The hiker’s headlamp shone through the branches near our tent and I had the bizarre thought that a car was driving up the trail — like how headlamps look on your bedroom wall at night.
Our morning was an easy one. We packed up slow and I taped my toes. Hiking didn’t start until around eight, but we weren’t in much of a rush. A mile or so down the trail we had a great view of the desert.
We also had a tiny bit of service which was enough for Tomtit to call home. I sat on some rocks and trimmed my nails while he chatted.
Our goal for the morning was the Chimney Creek Campground eight miles from our campsite. There were pit toilets and picnic tables — a hiker’s dream! The trail went downhill to a valley where the campground was. When we got to the road we saw a note posted on the campground sign:
HIKERS
Beer
Dogs
Water
Trail magic at site #8, 0.2 miles –>
We debated whether “dogs” would be hotdogs or puppies as we sped up the dirt road. It turned out to be the former, along with oranges, chips, cookies, and stuff for sandwiches. We were getting so spoiled out here!! The trail magic providers were two married couples who hike (one husband had thru-hiked the PCT) and were out for Memorial Day weekend to give us dirty hikers food. Tomtit and I spent about three hours there with 10 other hikers eating and talking. There was talk of hamburgers later for dinner and we knew we’d better hit the trail again before we got sucked in : ) We got hugs from the two couples and scooted on out. We grabbed some water from a nearby creek before we left.
We had a bit of a climb (2500 feet), but it felt surprisingly easy compared to some of yesterday’s. Then it was seven miles of Bushtit-knee-crushing downhill to another creek valley with tons of camping for a total of 21 miles again. There were several other hikers down there with us — Sundown, Stonefoot, Spencer, and Boyce to name a few — and we were getting ready to listen to some audiobooks : )
Kennedy Meadows
Written by Arthur
The dew settled around us, and on us. We awoke as we heard two hikers walking down the hill we had descended the previous evening. They were chatting loudly, and we could tell it was Half-slow and Senior Whiskers. When Whiskers discovered he had walked into a camp with a dozen still sleeping hikers, he thought it would be funny to yell at us all to wake up. It wasn’t.
But we were right outside of Kennedy Meadows, so we arose and started the hike across the flat terrain. The hike was through a beautiful valley, and followed the Kern River a good part of the way.
It was Memorial Day, so we ran into some day hikers and weekend backpackers during the last few miles to town. We could tell they weren’t thru-hikers by how clean they were! We reached the road and walked the better part of a mile uphill to the general store.
About 10 other hikers hooted and hollered as we arrived, celebrating our arrival. The tradition continued for each arriving hiker as we all celebrated hitting a transition point. 700 miles in and we had finally left the desert behind, but soon we would be hiking up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. Over the next 20 miles we would be going from 6000 feet in elevation to over 10,000 and even higher beyond.
At the general store we stuffed our faces with burgers, got our packages and tore them open, took showers, did laundry, and just hung out with a ton of other hikers. Our national-park-required bear canisters arrived as well. We divvied up our food and stuffed it into the canisters. Our packs had to be repackaged to fit the beasts. The store kept a running tab of all our purchases, and that was a bad thing for us. It was much too easy to keep grabbing soda and ice cream and beer when money wasn’t yet leaving our pockets.
There was also a group of hunters getting wasted on the patio alongside us. The empty six-packs piled up on their table. Later, when we went to pitch our tent behind the store with the other hikers, several rifle shots went off somewhere in the trees behind us. Someone yelled to the guys “what the hell do you guys think you’re doing out there?! There are campers and houses around here!” And the shots stopped.
Couldn’t hear much after that, but it was a nice evening with the sun setting behind the mountains in the distance. Hiker midnight is at sundown and nearly everyone was in their tents at that point. It turned out to be one of the warmest nights in a long time, way up high at the gateway to the mountains.
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See more pictures from Arthur and Jill’s Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike by downloading the Adventure and The Pacific Crest Trail eBook. A print version is available as well. All sales help support Better Hiker.
