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June 5, 2015
Day: 12 Daily Miles: 53.25 Total Miles: 570.5 Hours Hiking:18.2
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| Sunrise on the start of the long road/aqueduct walk after Hikertown. |
June 5th, today I made it a giant number of 53.25 miles to point 0384791 E 3886925 N UTM, that's trail mile 570.75....there's kind of a little campsite area on the climb up from Highway 58....but shoot, that was a loooonnngggg day, I gotta say. I didn't think I was going to make it to 53 miles. My goal was....well my goal was about 50...but yeah! by the way it was going by the middle of the day, I didn't think I would do it at all. My original plan was to leave Hikertown at about 3:00 am to get the aqueduct walk done and out of the way and to get up into the hills before it got hot. But, because I had a mattress, I decided, when the 3:00 am alarm went off, to sleep in until about 4:15 am...so I got on trail about 4:30 am and had an OK morning, most of the aqueduct walk was pretty straight forward. I had gotten new shoes, which I was excited about, except for they are still pretty stiff, so doing a roadwalk for 17 miles really wasn't that nice to my feet...it kinda hurt them, especially coming from a pair of shoes that are really flexible to a very stiff pair, new things start to hurt, just because in the old pair the flexibility was causing different things to hurt. The first 17 weren't bad, but for some reason, after that, I just go into zombie mode.
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| Into the wind farms just after leaving the aqueduct. |
The hills up the Tylerhorse Creek, where just tough, my body saying "no, I don't to go". That probably has a lot to do with not getting enough sleep...I know how that goes [2012] But, I got to Tylerhose Creek, I stopped, got water, had some lunch, but by that time, I had done like 23 miles or something...It was by no means bad, but it's hard to pull yourlself out of these slumps, especially in the middle of the day when you know you have a climb coming up, which I did. Once I had lunch, and turn to the trail and told myself 'alright man, just keep going', just put your head down and count...I was listening to the first book of the Alera Code - Furies of Calderon [Jim Butcher] and it helped me zone out...even if there is a hill, you just walk up the hill...you get your heart going, your breath going, you get your legs going and if you get a little tired you stop, take 10 deep breaths, turn around and keep going. So, that's what I did and by gradual degrees, I started feeling better and better and better. By the top, I was actually feeling OK, tired, but not that kind of sluggish, zombie mode tired that I had been earlier. So, I just kept going. The worst part about that, is when you get to the top of the ridge, you have about 10 miles or so to get from there to Willow Creek Road, where everyone hitches into Tehachapi or Mojave. The trail just contours the crap out of this thing...there is a road in the valley and you can see it the whole way that is a straight shot...and I'm thinking "that road could get me where I want to be in 4 miles, but the trail makes it 10". So it's just really....stupid...You constantly think that I could be there by now...but no, the trail won't ever let you do that (laughs). So, that took forever...thankfully there were big nice puffy clouds about, trying to become thunderheads.. I don't think many of them did.
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| Climbing passed the wind farms to Tylerhorse Creek. |
Those clouds helped, along with a lot of breeze, it kept it cool. I lucked out big time with the weather because Mojaves high for the day was 80 degrees...which in a couple days it will be back up to 95, so I hit it at its cool point, especially for the month of June...it's only going to get hotter. So the temperature was a bonus and luck, together....I kept on going down that stupid hill, I finally made it to Willow Creek Road, where it started to rain on me...It wasn't a big patch, you could tell it was just a little thunderstorm rain and that it would be gone pretty shortly. I took a little break, hid under a sign for a sec...I was at 41 miles at that point, so I was doing just fine and could give myself a nice break. I told my self 'Ok, it's about 6:00 pm, 9 more miles, take some caffeine and go up and over this little...big windmill farm, where you walk through them"...Man, did that caffeine do some good! Everything changed! I was cruising fast, feeling great, HAPPY, I got a situation figured out where I am going to get a new camera sent to me...so things were going well. I was just blasting along. I made it down to the roadwalk after you go down the big stupid switchbacks and it was only like 7:30 pm, so I was like 'I'll walk fast and keep going....the 50 mile mark is at the base of the climb, right next to Highway 58, so lets see if I can make it up the climb a little bit'.
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| Nearing the top of the dreaded sandy hill. |
I met a few more people, two people that were slackpacking...they were actually running the trail, the little section between Willow Springs Road and Highway 58. That was kinda funny, they said " Man, after hiking for about 5 weeks, I can run on trail...I just can't run uphill' (laughs)...because you have no cardio, because you don't particularly need cardio, it's helpful if you hike fast up a hill, but for the most part, it's not that helpful....Like I'm doing right now...if you can hear my breathing, there are some hills....Right as I passed over Highway 58 and got back on proper trail, I met two other girls that had just come from a zero in Tehachapi, and they were all excited and it came out about what I was doing and how many day I've been on trail...and they "just couldn't believe it, that's CRAZY!" and they were really stoked. (mockingly) I'm becoming a famous star....they took my picture! They cheered me off, as I took off ahead of them...I just put some music in and just jammed out for another 3 miles. It was super windy... you get up onto that ridge and it was just howling...but, the Halfmile maps said there were a couple of campsites, and that was my goal, so I made it up to them, and after a little bit of searching, I found a good place....dug it out flatter and nestled in behind a juniper tree that was somewhat blocking the wind... Just as I was finishing up my dinner, about 25 minutes later, the two girls came up and found similar campsites around and then I was into bed.
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| The wind farms between Willow Springs Rd and Hwy 58. |
From there, there was a good view of Mojave, the nice lights and everything, you could barely hear the train, it was just one of those nights of tossing and turning and tucking in, because I have a quilt, I have to tuck in the corners, otherwise they would literally be flapping in the wind, as the wind would catch them. It was nice to have wind, it kept you cool, not too hot. So it was a wonderful day...it was my biggest day yet and I will probably be hard pressed to break that until maybe Oregon or something...yeah, I did awesome, better than expected, that puts me a little bit closer to trying to get to Kennedy Meadows on time, well before it closes so I can get my package on my 15th day. I was about, 6 miles short of where I was at in 2012, so if I can make up those 6 miles in the next 3 days, I should have a really good shot at just barely making the store before it closes. We'll see!
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| Looking north from Mather Pass at the Palisade Peaks, Sierra Nevada Mountains. |
