Category: Pacific Crest Trail 2023

Start: 2157

Stop: 2192.4

Today’s miles: 35.4

Total PCT miles: 1909

Today was long, but I don’t think I’ve laughed this much in awhile!

We actually woke up at 5:45 like we said we would, and we were on trail by 6:30 somehow instead of 6:15-but I think it was the sunrise that kept stalling me. It was beautiful, coming up over the horizon with the tiny town lights down below in the valley. This spot up above on the mountain really made for some great views.

We hiked for about 2 miles before getting to the cistern for water. It was tricky, and if Marquis hadn’t been there, once again, I wouldn’t have been drinking any water! He used the string and trekking pole situation again to get his bottle to fill and then used that bottle to fill up the rest. Those cisterns are creepy, I keep expecting to see a dead body floating in it-and we kind of did-a lizard. Poor dude. Anywho-heebeejeebees for certain.. I almost don’t know if I’d stick my arm down in those things in general if I was alone. Ha.. actually, I know I wouldn’t.

We kept hiking. The desert brush and bushes are all pokey, spiky, prickly, or in someway painful to walk by. Poodle Dog Bush leaves a rash where it touches your skin, so when it popped up all over the dang place, Marquis and I walked over to the dirt road adjacent to the trail. At least the road is wide enough to avoid the nasty rash giving bush.

It was hot and the gnats were out in full force-their entire army’s lining up to take turns diving into my eyes and up my nose. I was technically in my headnet before the sun actually broke over the horizon. We were sweating like pigs! When we eventually made it to a road crossing, we decided to try to hitch into Green Valley to get a snack and a soda. When one didn’t stop-we just walked to the gas station in town anyway. We had already got ourselves excited about a cold treat, ya know?

Once there, basking in the air conditioning and picking out drinks-and ice cream for Marquis, the girl working told us about a new restaurant that just opened a month or so ago called “Smoke House” that’s only a mile down the road. So. That felt like a sign, especially since we had to walk down there already. I looked at our app, and if we walked the mile to the restaurant, we could continue to road walk through town, past a lake, make a turn, and then get back on trail. It didn’t seem to be much, if any, shorter than the piece of trail between the road crossings-so, we decided to go with the road walk and avoid the bush attacks and snakes. No regrets.

The food was incredible! And the restaurant was so nicely decorated! I was in love with the atmosphere, maybe even more than the food. Our waitress told us she hand made from scratch the biscuits, Jalapeño cornbread, and a cinnamon bake.. how on earth do you choose from that?! I got a little of everything: biscuits and gravy, pulled pork sandwich, Coleslaw, Mac and cheese, green chili corn, and cornbread.

I am ashamed to say I couldn’t finish it all. I saved my pulled pork sandwich for last and was absolutely dying by the time I got to it-so after a few bites I got a small to go box and stuck it in my pack. It just now ended up being my dinner. We finished up and started our long road walk to get back to trail, and the road through town was super cute. Lots of houses, all different in shape, size, color. All with fences and almost all with dogs. I loved it!

Then, the road went up and started winding around the mountains, went down and around a lake, and then continued on for forever it felt like, especially with overly full bellies and the hot sun beating on us and the pavement. Nothing scratched my legs though, and we saw no snakes. We did see some kind of big cat, Marquis thinks it could have been a lynx or a bobcat, maybe. It wasn’t huge, but it was way bigger than a house cat. I got him on camera.. so, I’m considering it all a win!

By the time we got to trail, after some sketchy two lane highway walking, it was close to 6pm. The trail climbed from the road, and when we stopped to fill up water at the last available water spot for a while, we also got out headlamps. We got to watch the sunset over the mountains and we could see the lake we walked around down in the distance. The deep oranges of the sky mixed with the rusty reds and forest greens of the shrubs we were walking through was absolutely beautiful. All of the colors just seemed so much more vibrant and vivid.

We set up camp on the top of the mountain we climbed up-it’s more like a big hill.. nothing too dramatic. It was dark when we did so, but a faint orange glow was shining behind the city lights below, and the moon is completely full-occasionally making one of us think the other has their headlamp shining for no reason.. lol.

We unpacked and ate our dinners, my pulled pork sandwich was maybe even better tonight after that climb. Now it’s almost 9pm, crickets are singing and I’m about ready to put in my earplugs and use my headband as an eye mask to get some shut eye, 5:45 comes real fast. Goodnight!

Start: 2137.6

Stop: 2157

Today’s miles: 19.4

Total PCT miles: 1873.6

I slept amazingly well in that motel bed.. even if I did wake up a couple times and tossed and turned. Since I’ve been hiking, when I sleep in a bed it always looks like I’ve been fighting people in my sleep by the time I wake up. I’m always sideways and the covers are twisted and knotted and half on the floor.. but I swear it was restful! Ha

I packed quickly and walked to the McDonald’s from yesterday. I got a biscuit, ate it quickly, and then walked across the main highway to start hitching. I still had my sign, and the road was busy with tractor trailers and tons of cars flying past. I was out there for 40 minutes before a man stopped for me. He is a retired military man from Tehachapi, but he coaches boxing certain days of the week in Palmdale.. where he’s headed today.

We talked while he drove, and he got me to the intersection of 138 before letting me out. I only had 20 more minutes to get to Hikertown now! I stood on this smaller road for less than 10 minutes before a man in a convertible BMW pulled over. It was comical trying to fit my pack in his pristine trunk, but we got it in there. The two of us chit-chatted about hiking and camping the rest of the way to Hikertown. His car looked too nice to be an avid hiker’s car, but what do I know?

When he dropped me off, I all but ran to Marquis! I had missed him so much! We walked inside the house at the back, where the older man, Richard was and introduced me. We ate breakfast (second breakfast in my case) and caught up a bit before getting our shoes on to hike out. Richard brought cake and we had steak and egg sandwiches. Talk about luxury-it put the McDonald’s biscuit to shame.

Hikertown is really just a property along this two lane road out in the middle of nowhere. The trail goes right by it, so Richard made it for hikers. He’s got it set up like an old western town, super cute, and there’s places for hikers to camp and shower and eat.. really neat.

We started hiking around 10am. It was already hot, both of us sweating within the first few minutes. The trail was overgrown and every single plant or bush that we walked past was sharp and scratchy. I was frustrated pretty quick, and if I had been alone I know I would have been much worse. But, Marquis has a way to make you laugh, even when you’re beyond irritated with the surroundings. He was just as miserable as me, and we cackled and complained for close to that whole 20 miles we hiked!

We had some pretty views after a big climb. The desert feels very open, with the views going and going for miles upon miles. That makes the heat and bushes bearable I think. Water was a pain to get, out of a concrete cistern that required a Marquis. He’s 6’3” tall, and if I had been alone, I would still be thirsty. He tied string around his smart water bottle and we had to put my trekking pole in the bottle, hold the string, and shove the bottle under the water.. the thing is, the water was so far down that I wouldn’t have been able to reach it with my trekking pole! It’s a little nuts, and beyond creepy.

He filled his bottle several times, pouring it into my dirty water cnoc bag and into his other water bottle until we both had 3 liters of drinking water. What a mess. It took for damn ever. We finally started hiking again, just after 5:30pm. It gets dark so early now.. it’s real annoying.. BUT Marquis gave me the new headlamp he ordered for me, so I was excited to get to use it soon. We walked until sunset, and then camped in an empty campground.

All of the campsites were covered in broken glass. Like people had been shooting beer bottles or something. It was absolutely everywhere, and both Marquis and I have expensive tents that we didn’t want to get ripped.. so, we cleared us spots in the middle of the dirt road loop that all of the campsites surround. We were the only people out here, so, hopefully it stays that way tonight and we don’t get any late night visitors driving around. We set up and watched the end of the sunset-glowing hot orange over the city lights in the town below. It’s pretty gorgeous.

We both ate our dinners from inside our tents, thanks to being too lazy to walk over to a glass covered picnic table. I’m really not trying to tear my feet up, and although my shoes are practically still new, I don’t want to put them back on. Something tells me that glass will slice right through my crocs-so-tent dinners are A ok with me!

Y’all. I’m really so damn happy to have my friend back. I didn’t realize how lonely I was on the few days where I’d hike by myself all day, even if I did catch up to camp with people most nights. It just didn’t feel like this-that knowing someone well enough to cut up and crack jokes and just laugh. Even if I’m currently not a fan of the desert terrain, I’m happy as hell to be walking through it with Marquis.

Ok, that’s enough of all that. Time to get some sleep and see what tomorrow has in store for us! Goodnight y’all.

Start: 1985.3

Stop: 2002

Today’s miles: 16.7

Total PCT miles: 1854.2

Well, my reptilian tormentor joined me in my dreams. Stupid damn snake. I was startled awake, dreaming that the demon was trying to get into my tent-then realized it was Strider! She was telling me that her and Hobble-it were packed and heading out. It wasn’t even 5am! No way I’d be catching them now.. I told them bye and tucked myself back into my quilt, both sad that I’m a lazy turd and wouldn’t just get up and start packing, and happy that I could maybe get a little more snake-free dreaming in..

I pressed snooze until 6:45! Jesus Christ! I left by 7:15, irritable with myself and absolutely terrified of every bush and twig and lizard on the trail. I had to poop pretty early on, and I was seriously so freaked out by that huge nope rope from yesterday that I waited until the very last second to get off the trail and dig a hole. I was also right out in the open. I’m pretty sure anyone within a mile could see my behind, but I was NOT about to go walking around in scrub brush that’s doing nothing but hiding snakes. Nope. No thank you.

Anyway. The trail wasn’t terrible.. the views were great and it was mostly downhill. There weren’t many climbs at all and I saw not one snake. I did however count 85 lizards by 10am and then gave up on the counting because I’m lazy and keeping up with the count was making my head hurt. Ha. Oh! I also saw my very first Joshua Trees! They remind me of palm trees after Edward Scissorhands got ahold of them. Sharp, odd, but remarkably neat to see.

I made it down to the two lane highway by 2:30pm. Strider and Hobble-it were long gone of course. The road crossing was at the top of Walker Pass, so it took a few minutes to get in a good hitching spot to be seen early enough for the car to pull over safely, but also have enough room so big trucks could get in the pull off lane to slow down for their descent. It was brutally hot on that asphalt. I was dumping buckets, with my thumb hiked out and trying to be bubbly and happy so someone would stop for me.

So many cars passed. And so did tons of tractor trailers. They all got into the far lane, so many times I would think they were stopping for me, but they were just preparing to slow down for the other side. It took roughly 30 minutes before a sweet mid 50s Romanian man stopped in his massive tractor trailer, hauling stuff for the military base in town where I was headed. He helped me lift my pack in between the two seats, then gave me a soda from his cooler, and peppered me sweetly about the trail and told me all about truck driving for the whole 45 minutes to Ridgecrest. I feel like I could get a job driving now..

My new friend dropped me off at the corner of two main roads, Taco Bell to my right, the military base he was headed to on the left. Perfect! I walked the half mile to Taco Bell in the heat, and then absolutely demolished an ungodly amount of bean burritos. I have loved those things since childhood, I don’t foresee that ever changing. I also drank two huge Mountain Dews. Lord, please be with me.. and my stomach when all of this hits.

When I left Taco Bell and headed towards the grocery store (about a half mile away), I chatted with Marquis. He would be getting back to Hickertown from playing in San Pedro first thing tomorrow morning. He’s been helping a man fix up his vintage cars. Pretty neat stuff, Ferraris and Rolls Royces. The man, Richard, arranged a place for me to sleep inside tonight at Hikertown, so now I just have to get there.

I resupplied from the grocery store and also bought a black marker and a poster board. Outside, I packed all my stuff into my backpack and wrote “PCT HIKER TO HIKERTOWN (HWY 138)” on the poster board-in hopes someone would stop knowing I wasn’t homeless or something. I made my way back to the busy intersection I got dropped off at and started my hitch hiking attempts. It was after 5pm, the sun was dipping, and I was worried no one would stop.

I’m not sure how long I was out there, but it was long enough that I was starting to contemplate walking to a motel and trying again in the morning. That would be my plan if the sun started setting, for sure. But, to my surprise, a car pulled over for me! It was a father and adult daughter, headed home with dinner they just picked up. They originally said they could just take me to the next town, where it would be easier to get a hitch, which was totally fine.

Close to the next town, the two decided that they’d drive to the house, the dad would stay and the daughter would drive me to Hikertown and come back. They had me laughing the whole way to their house, hilarious banter and all around good vibes. The woman got to the driver’s seat, and I moved up to the passenger’s seat and we took off-non stop comfortable chatter the whole time. We sang along to the radio and laughed-and I swear it felt like I’d known this girl forever, like we’d been friends out on road trips before.

The problem arose when I pulled up the GPS again and we realized we were still 45 minutes away.. and my new friend dropped one hell of a bomb: her headlights don’t work. Whoops. Well. That changes things. We were coming up to Mojave, a small town along the main two lane highway cutting through California. I told her she could just drop me off in this town, preferably at a motel, and I’d be more than grateful. She’d have time to get home before the sun was completely gone (if she hurried), and I’d just sleep in a motel and try to hitch the 45 minutes to Hikertown first thing in the morning.

She agreed. I offered her gas money, either in cash or at a pump, and she accepted. We popped into a gas station and I put $20 in her tank before she drove me to a motel right along the road I’d need to be on in the morning. She waited for me to confirm they had a room for me before hopping out and hugging me bye, like old friends.. then she drove off-literally-into the sunset. I hope she made it home alright.

The motel is -well- a motel. No shampoo or conditioner, only a tiny bar of soap in the room, otherwise it was clean and the air conditioner worked. I walked down the street a little to a Family Dollar, got shampoo and conditioner, then walked next door to that to a McDonald’s. I got my food to go, came back to the room, and showered before eating. I thought I’d be starving, but I guess when you eat your weight in bean burritos it curbs your appetite for awhile.

I talked with Mom and with Marquis. I’ll get up at 7 and make sure the sun is up before starting to hitch.. this town isn’t along the trail, so it’s mostly truck drivers and people passing through. It doesn’t give off the safest of vibes, but it is what it is and I have to get the rest of the way to my friend.. so, what can ya do? Ha. Ok.. time to sleep! I’m worn out! Today has been a long one, it’s hard to believe I hiked 16 miles before all of this town and hitching business! Sweet dreams!