Done with PCT... for now

I will probably update this blog someday.

June 17th Kearsarge lakes to bishop

July 16th creek to Kearsarge lakes

July 15th Guitar Lake to creek

June 14th Whitney

June 14th 753 to guitar lake

June 13th death canyon creek to 753

June 12th 710 to death canyon creek

June 11th Kennedy medows to 710

Spent another morning chilling on the porch. I had planned to zero here and let the folks I had been hiking with before I 15 catch up but that was before some of the other hikers pointed out we could make it to Whitney with a full moon. It would require doing a few big days again but just sounded so great that I had to go. 
That meant I had to stop procrastinating and grab my packages. The one I mailed from Agua dulce was exactly as expected. The new shoes were definitely needed since my old ones had no tad left and the left shoe had lost all cushioning since walker pass. The other package was the bear vault that Grommet sent. It was filled with all kinds of goodies. I couldn't find a good way to get the vault in my pack, it was either weighting heavily on one side of the pack or digging into my spine. I decided to just strap it onto the top and see how that goes.

I decided to stick around for the spaghetti dinner that was going to be served the hike. While I was waiting Jay showed up. He decided to get back in the trail and hike instead of sit at home and drink. I highly approve. I told him about my Whitney plan and he wanted to give it a shot. We hiked 7 miles to a nice camp spot and called it a day.

June 10th kern to Kennedy medows

Short 3 mile hike along the kern to Kennedy medows. It was a great morning. Amazing how much happier I was hiking when I had easy access to water, the area wasn't a desolate burned desert, and there was a town at the end.

Kennedy medows was fantastic. There were about 20 hikers there chilling on the porch if the store waiting for them to open up and start making breakfast. I'm not sure if it's a PCT tradition or if it's just the class of 2014, but whenever a hiker makes it to one of these big milestones where other hikers are gathered the ones there welcome the new comers with a round of applause. It's great. There was some nice camp spots in the first behind the store where I stashed my stuff then I spent the rest of the day hanging out on the porch of the store catching up with the other hikers.

June 9th 673 to kern river

I left my food bag out of my tent last night, which was a bad idea. The ants git in and got all over my cheese. Not a big deal since I had more than enough food but I haven't had cheese in a while since the desert is so hot.
I had to hike 8 miles on a half litre of water since I dry camped last night without planning to. It wasn't bad since it was almost all downhill. When I got to the water real time, who I had hiked with out of little bear spring, was sitting there relaxing. He had an extra day to waste while waiting for a package at Kennedy medows so he was going to take it easy. Which meant he was doing a 20 mile day to the kern river. I wasn't planning on going that far but there was a huge burned area with no water or places to camp so I ended up going there also. We split up at lunch time since he didn't think it was that hot, and it wasn't while there were trees. But I could see the burnt area and decided to wait. Turns out I was right. The burnt area sucked. It was an easy 10 mile downhill but with no shade and water it was not pleasant. I was definitely ready to be done with the desert after that. I made it to the river which was rather disappointing. The area that was near the trail for water was a beaver pool. Very gross. But I was out of water so I double treated a litre and set up camp. I didn't see real time so I assumed he just did the 3 extra miles to Kennedy medows.

June 8th 657 to 673

A beautiful morning. Got up to watch the sunrise and hiked to the next water source. Water in this stretch isn't too bad about every 10 miles. Which is great since I lost 3 litres of carrying capacity. My 2 and 1 litre water bottles both sprung leaks right before walker pass. Not a big deal since I had an extra 2 litre bottle but if the other 1 litre breaks I won't be able to use my sawyer filter.
The hike was a nice change almost the whole day was spent under trees. It still got really hot mid day but with all the shade and trees it wasn't that bad. I had planned to hike 24 miles to a water source but on my way there I saw such a great camping spot that I had to stop. It was on a ledge with a perfect view of the valley below. Unfortunately there were ants. Which meant I was in my tent instead of enjoying the scenery.

June 7th walker pass to 657

We dilly dallied in the morning and eventually got back up to walker pass with the supplies I needed to make it to Kennedy medows. I waited at walker pass for the heat if the day to pass then hiked 5 miles. There was a nice camp spot with a great view of both sunset and sunrise so I stayed.

June 5th and 6th

Had a good time fishing the kern river with dad and dan. Didn't catch anything but I don't like fish anyway. I did start to get the hang of fly casting at least.

June 4th bird spring pass road to walker pass

Nothing like a morning hike up a mountain to get you going. Luckily for me there was a fully stocked water cache at the road so I was able to drink a few litres before I started so I could carry less up the hill. The view from the top was more of the same and in ready for the desert to be over. I hiked until lunch time as usual and found a shady spot to rest in. I picked a bad spot, I should have kept going when I saw the cow shit everywhere. The shade was nice but I got bit by a tick while I was resting. I didn't notice it since I was sleeping in some pointy leaves and just thought it was another leaf prick. Either way I burned the little fucker. After that I just and hiked to the campground I was meeting dad at. He showed up eventually, ahead of schedule but since I had no signal since Tehachapi we did rather well. They wanted to go to a campground and spend the night there. I was like nope I need a shower and bed. You guys go play at camping I'll be sleeping on a mattress tonight.

June 3rd 605 to bird spring pass rd

Tried getting up before the sun since it was supposed to be a really hot dry stretch so I wanted to get as many miles in as I could. That didn't work cause it was cold, stupid desert can't make up its mind.
I eventually made it to the spring and filled up enough water to make it through the next 12 mile stretch without water. The next water source was a 3.4 mile off trail hike where I would miss 2 miles of the PCT. When I got to the detour it was a no brainer, there was no shade anywhere in sight except for that spring. The hike down to the spring started out fun with 2 boulder scrambles that were similar to the mahoosuc notch. The spring was flowing nicely in a fenced off area, but the shade was lacking. There was barely enough room for 6 and there was about 15 people there by the time I left. We got nice and cozy.

I left around 330 and it was still blazing hot. The hike sucked. The first few miles when I got back to the trail was in deep sand. It then went uphill while still in deep sand. Then I get to the top and the deep sand is broken up only because the trail went washboard. The washboard was about 10 feet apart so you had to walk up and down each little hill and this went on for miles. I eventually reached a road and looked up at a 2000 ft climb and called it a day. The only fun part of that stretch was when I walked right past a Mojave green rattlesnake. The most poisonous and aggressive of all.

June 2nd Golden oaks to mi 605

Woke up to some cows drinking water straight from the spring. Kinda gross. I filtered my water regardless of where is from but still not pleasant to see. They were cute cows, 3 female 1 male and 2 calves. There was another 16+ miles hike to the next water source so my pack was heavy again. I made it 12 miles to some shade before it got to hot and I had to rest.

The next water source was a little nicer, still signs of cows everywhere but at least the springs source was fenced off. I cooked dinner at the spring like I have been over the last few days. It's really the only way to do it, otherwise you have to carry an extra litre. I could have done that since for the first time in days the next water source was only 10 miles away. I wasn't going to make it there today. I just hiked until the sunset and found a nice flat spot.

June 1st Tehachapi to golden oaks spring

Had a nice relaxing day in town. The hot tub at the hotel really is a huge difference maker. I decided I'm getting bored with the desert hiking and I'm going to skip 8 miles by hitching to highway 58 instead of the road I came in on. It also gave me more time to relax in the hotel and I didn't get to the trail till around 11. The hiking was fairly easy and I made good time for a town day.  I was up in some hills for most of the day and it was much cooler. I saw my first deer on the trail, a couple young bucks just sprouting their antlers.  I hiked to the first water source 18 miles from town and called it a day.

May 31st 554 to tahachapi

Had a great sleep with the windmills going. Got a cool sunrise photo of then also. I had a short easy hike into town where I resupplied and did town chores. The supermarket in town didn't have any good chocolate milk, but they had some strange flavors, root beer and peanut butter chocolate, and I decided to try the root beer. It was ok but I think it would have been much better with whole milk instead of the 1%. It ended up tasting like a watered down root beer float.