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Click "Play" below to listen to the Day 13 audio journal.
June 6, 2015
Day: 13 Daily Miles: 49.5 Total Miles: 620 Hours Hiking: 16
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| The welcome thunderstorms are tying to block the sun! |
June 6th, I made it 49.5 miles, to point 0393816 E 3924594 N UTM....lets see, where the heck was that......hhmm...umm....huh, I've having a hard time recalling where that actually was...it wasn't too long ago, I mean they have been very long days...OH! actually it was just before...well about 4 miles after Kelso Valley Road, just before the 0.5 mile stretch of trees out in the middle of the desert area, just before you get into the really pretty joshua tree and boulder area....Yeah, that day...it happened to be another long day, which I knew it had to be to make it to Kennedy Meadows...my goal was 50, but it was 9:24 pm or whatever when I came across a good campsite and I called 49.5 good enough. I started out that day half way up the climb from Highway 58...I didn't sleep too well, it was really windy and so my quilt kept trying to blow off me...then puff up with air...I was kinda sleeping perpendicular to the wind, which wasn't the best orientation, but that was the best camp spot I could find....I was just tired from the beginning of the day because I didn't get great sleep. I kept climbing up that hill, that was OK, morning climbs aren't my favorite, but they aren't usually hard because you are more refreshed...you may not be awake, but o'well.
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| It does rain in SoCal and in the Mojave... |
Then....a really boring, rocky, dusty roadwalk for a bit, then you're all up in the windmill farms for....forever...and ever and ever. It's not a very pretty stretch at all I'd say. I got to Golden Oaks Spring, its been repaired, it was great, filled up my water with no problem. I kept on truckin' and it started to get HOT, then there was a burn area that lasted forever with windmills next to it out in the middle of nothing...just dry and hot with ups and downs, ups and downs over this ridge and that ridge. The trail does dumb things to try and avoid the windmills, like you could walk the ridge next to the windmills, but instead, it drops you down into this valley then straight back up on the opposite side next to the windmills, and you think 'I could have just walked next to the windmills and not lost any elevation and had been fine...because I can still see them [from the trail] and see nothing more down in the valley... I passed quite a few people, probably 10 by midday. The clouds started to come in which was nice, they actually turned into thunderstorms around the area. I met a New Zealand guy, who was having fun hiking, I talked with him for about 15 minutes while we were hiking. So that was nice to have a little chat time, because he was keeping up... Come towards the middle of the day, around mile 25-28, something happened to me...I was encroaching on a thunderstorm and getting close to Robin Bird Springs and I just all of a sudden felt flush......HOLD ON, PEOPLE...........
Day 13, part 2.
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| Into the heart of the storm we go. After Golden Oaks Spring. |
Yeah, towards the middle of the day I got this hot, flushed feeling...I've had it before, usually it's when you're sick, and you just lose....something goes wrong, it feels like you overheat and then your mind just fuzzy and you feel disconnected from your body...and it's hard to do things...who knows what it was from, I was under the clouds, it wasn't super hot, but I just felt flushed and it took a good 3 miles to kind of push through whatever was going on. At one point I thought "I should stop and take a nap, maybe that's what my body is really telling me to do?" so I could possibly reset...but I needed water, so I kept going...and it was awful....It's hard to shake that off, but I managed to push through...if there was a hill I wouldn't have been able to make it, I would have just stopped and sat down....but thankfully it was downhill. Passed Robin Bird Springs - I didn't stop there, I knew there was water further on, so I wouldn't have to carry as much weight further - I met about 6 people at the top of the little hill after Robin Bird, they were all lounging around because they had gotten rained on for a few hours earlier and were drying stuff out. Thankfully, one of them said that the Kelso Valley Road and Bird Spring Pass Road actually had maintained water caches, so I wouldn't have to carry gallons of water to get me all the way to Walker Pass.
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| Heading towards Kelso Valley Road. |
So, that was REALLY great news. I kept on truckin'... I was getting really tired, as I hadn't really stopped much at all that day, so when I got to the concrete damn at around mile 35, I filled up all my water and took a good 25 minute break just to help my body relax and recuperate a little. After that, the evening was a bit slow it felt like, just listened to an audio book, went up and down...I knew I had to push..and this wasn't the best way to go about it but I finally got down to the views of Kelso Valley Road and knew that I was behind, so I had some caffeine and tried to push...put some music on instead of an audio book and just push push pushed. For me, when the evening comes, and the sun goes down, that's when I like to push the hardest....I don't know why, it's just the best time of day for me. I got to the Kelso Valley Road, topped off my water and by then, it was around 8:00 pm, the sun was down, but I had 4 more miles, so I pushed it. There is a 2 mile climb, which I just kept going into the dark...that was about it...It felt like I just slowly limped along that day to make the miles, but I did it and it's all for the purpose to get to Kennedy Meadows on time, which I'm currently on the day that I am going to reach Kennedy Meadows, which is a 33...so I will make it today! assuming something doesn't go wrong. It was worth it.
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| One the descent to Kelso Valley Rd at sunset with views of Maya Peak. |
