June 4 - Aquaduct Walk

Start: hikertown
End: ? Me not knowing where we set up camp is becoming more common
Daily: 20.9
Total: 358.5

We were planning on making it 24 miles today but walking up that aquaduct was just so exhaustingly boring that we had to cut the day short. We will still make it in to Tehachapi tomorrow, it just might not be till 5 ish. We wanted to get there at like 3.

So in February, we went to Big Bend NP to practice for this desert hiking. We thought a lot more of Southern California would be through flat desert. It was like 90 degrees and sunny on that trip, so we experimented with umbrellas and waiting out the hot part of the day.

So in the middle of today I realized that that trip was really in preparation for this day. We crossed the Mojave Desert today. The thing is, it was about 70 degrees and cloudy with a slight cool breeze all day. Perfect weather.

We carried too much water. I had 3.5 liters, and drank so much I had to pee every thirty minutes. We passed up Cottonwood Creek and I still made it to camp with enough to cook with and still have about 2/3 of a liter to get me to the next water source in 3 miles. Chris still has a liter and a half. Oh, we also used some to make wet sand for a seahorse with my sand toy.

The aqueduct was so boring. Just a slight uphill grade on cement or gravel all day. This morning we did get to walk on a crazy steel pipe with huge rivets. It looked like something from a steampunk movie.

I ended up using up most of my battery to stream Pandora for about 3 hours to pass the time today. We'll be in town tomorrow anyway.

We got close to Cottonwood Creek (about 17 miles into today's hike) and saw a truck. Thru hikers get really excited when there are cars near the trail because often that means trail magic. Down the hill we saw people sitting in chairs. That almost definitely means trail magic. Sure enough, two people from the Class of '09 (Good Spot and his girlfriend, cant remembr her name) were there with beer and sodas and watermelon and mango salsa and chips. About 5 other thrus were there too. We asked them why they picked this spot and they said it was their least favorite spot on the trail and they wanted to make it better. It sure worked. We stopped and chatted for a while, had a beer and some delicious fresh fruity food, and then took a beer for the road.

Finally we found ourselves here, in a gully somewhere. I'm going to fall asleep to the sound of coyotes having a dusk party. Night!