Day 42: Mile 534.9 - 549.0

An intentionally shorter day today. After two 20+ days, then a 17 day (with a road walk), then another 17 day that night, well, I don't care *how* close Tehachapi and the comforts of town are, I was going to take an easy day. The rest of the group can hustle off to Tehachapi--and for good reason, evidently Kemo has a friend in LA who's going to take them out to Huntington Beach this weekend, so they're chasing a ride--but I'm resolved *not* to hurry, I'm resolved to take it *easy*, and so today, only 14 or so miles.

Runts agreed with me, so today that was the plan. We left the bridge relatively early, trying to beat the heat, but we got the wind instead, the sort of driving wind that occasionally tries to knock you over. Made sense: we were walking through a wind-farm after all!, and the windmills were going full bore today. Every now and then there would be a stand of stunted juniper trees upwind and we would get a brief reprieve and take advantage, pulling out our morning bars and snacks, and every now and then there would be a singular juniper tree just off trail but with cleared dirt in a circle all around it and you knew it was basically used for shade in the heat of mid-day, but we didn't take advantage of those and just passed them by. And we hiked by the giant white pillars and their giant spinning blades, crossing service roads that had signs warning of slow PCT hikers crossing the roads, and past a sign that warned beware of electrical hazards here!, but then said, but PCT hikers are ok, and we walked among the hills of the wind farm until we came to their end at the foot of the mountains.

Then began the first climb of the day, up to Tylerhorse Canyon, the next water supply. This was preceded with a series of switch-backs where the wind rather suddenly died down, but the heat of the morning started to kick in. But it was a manageable climb--the incline wasn't infinite but close to it--and we got to Tylerhorse to get water from a trickling stream.

For those curious, here's an example of a PCT water calculation. From Tylerhorse, the next *reliable* water would be at Willow Springs, where we would actually catch a ride into Tehachapi itself. (There was a potential water cache in the middle, but it is best not to rely on such things if you can help it.) Willow Springs is 18 miles away, though, and uphill. And we're not making it all the way to Willow Springs today: we've already done 6 miles, we plan to camp about 8 miles further down the trail. So that means we need water for 18 miles uphill, over what's technically desert (so it'll likely be hot), plus camping overnight. That's 4 L for the hiking portion (at 1 L per 5 miles, plus some extra for the uphill and anticipated heat), but 1 L for camping, for a 5 L water carry. Get paranoid, so carry a little extra, say 5.5 L. So that's what I carried: four 1 L smartwater bottles, plus 1.5 L in my CNOC bag. Which adds up to a little over 12 lbs in water. Southern California has plenty of 15 to 20 mile stretches with no water: they're long and we don't like them--water is heavy!--but we do get used to them.

(By the way, it turned out that water cache 8 miles that we were not depending on? It was there. So actually we could have gotten away with just 2 L of water, rather than 5.5 L, which would have been *so* much less weight to drag up the mountain. Well, nuts.)

From Tylerhorse we were kind of "level" for a bit: the PCT rose, but very gradually, and now looked out south over the desert below. But after a few miles of that, we dropped down into a canyon and then started the final climb up: a 4-mile, 2000-foot climb to the top of the mountains and our campsite for the night. Although it was hot by now--mid to high 80s by my watch--honestly I could have powered through it and just forced it into an infinite incline. But I was trying to take it easy today, remember?, so I took breaks along the way, even stopping at the halfway point to pull off my shoes in the rare shade of a singular tall tree. So it became a finite incline. As we got higher up, we would be more exposed and a breeze or two would grace the trail, and let me tell you, they were quite welcome!

But the views from up here!: I could look out over the desert below and see the windmills, which had loomed tall and giant when we were among them, slowly shrink into little white matchstick models. And glancing out over the desert--and pulling up Peak Finder--I could see the far mountains, and the peaks of Baldy and Baden-Powell all the way over there, and realize, hey, I was over there not but a few days ago, and look at where I am now! And I could continue to marvel at the large mounds--hills--of sand that seemingly pop up randomly across the otherwise flat desert floor, and wonder how did those form? So taking it slower and easier did have its benefits.

We came to our campsite at Mile 549 relatively early, around 2pm, and found ourselves suddenly at a little oasis. There's a dirt road that comes close to the PCT at that point, and a trail angel--Daniel I believe his name was--had set up a "Mile 549 Bar and Grill", which was composed of a couple of large patio antennas with metal folding chairs for seating on one side, and some counters on the others with a pantry box (with some simple hiker foodstuffs), a library box (also with some simple hiker foodstuffs, but also some books), a trail register (which we signed), and even a decorative ornamental arrangement with an old license plate, some flowers, and some wind chimes. And, most importantly, with a water cache and gallons and gallons of water! Runts had heard rumors of this oasis back under the bridge, and had extended our first "easy" day just to make it here, and it was worth it! We ate lunch, I set up my tent while she just cowboy camped (there were about 5-6 obvious campsites, we picked the two best for us), and had a relaxed afternoon and eventually night. While we waited, another group of hikers started trickling through, first Marcos and Popcorn already there (who had blown by us on the way up here, man, they were fast, and Marcos with this easy gait that seemed to glide up the mountain), then Fresh Prince came along, then John, then Cadillac and E-Bay and Approach and a whole flood of other folks whose names I never got. They were a big pack, talkative and friendly and fun, and they were debating whether to stay here for the night, or to push on to Tehachapi. The road to Tehachapi was only 9.5 miles more, and it was only early afternoon. And y'know, I hear tell there's sushi in Tehachapi. Well, that sealed it: the first arrivals, at least, resolved to push on and get into town today. It was interesting watching this decision slowly permeate as more of the group arrived: one by one, they would become convinced to press through to Tehachapi, even though they were arriving here later and later in the day. Eventually the last arrivals, Devon and Airdrop, would grumble a bit: "I knew as soon as someone suggested it, that we were going to be doing it, I just knew it" they would say, but they would shoulder their packs and continue on, aiming to get into Tehachapi tonight themselves.

But Runts and I, we had made up our minds and weren't going to be swayed. We had dinner, then as the sun dipped below the horizon, packed it in and finished up the day. And that was the hike!

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Some notes:

-- Cottonwood Creek Bridge > End of Wind Farm > Tylerhorse Canyon > Mile 549 Bar and Grill

-- Incidentally, if you ever wanted to know what a wind farm sounds like, you know when you notice that low rumbling sound and you look up expecting to see a jet flying overhead? Well, that's the sound of a wind farm. And just like the jet, if you're not paying attention, or if there's some other, more pressing sound, you don't hear it and it just white-noises into the background.

-- In the mountains I also indulged my old friend, looking for lots of potential other trails. And while there are certainly many paths, it's hard to say if they're trails. There's a whole class of "trails" that looked like great paths for downhill biking or ATVing, but as we got higher, Runts and I decided were actually just washes and so not really designed for that at all. And we would often pass ruts that I couldn't tell were trails or just run-off channels (or maybe both?). So certainly there are many other trails up here, but they're not marked and hard to distinguish from natural phenomenon. (Although I suppose the latter would become easier if I hiked out here more often--hey, when the old friend visits, that thought always accompanies him!)

-- There's an odd little mantra that I chant when it's hot and the sun is beating down on you and suddenly there's a little cool breeze: I say "God is good", often with a terrible Australian accent. I don't know where the accent comes from--I think I just like saying "good" as "gheed"--but I do know the mantra itself comes from a Candlelight Carol Service a long time ago. Back then, we would line the entrances to the church with votive candles inside little white sandwich bags. The key to doing this is to make sure you turn off the sprinklers that night, but one year we also had had rain earlier that afternoon, and rain *isn't* amenable to a scheduler. So we set up the candles anyway, and hoped it wouldn't rain, and it didn't! And I remember that day that Terry Braun, when he heard this little story, said matter-of-factly, "God is good". So now I say it when the weather is unexpectedly good, such as a cool breeze on a hot day. (Hmm, so I guess technically it's not a mantra, but a quotation!)

-- Watching the news of "going into town *today*" trickle through the group at the oasis, I had to admit that that's something that's tricky for me, at least, on trail: figuring out when to stick with the group and when to go it alone. We're all pretty independent out here--there's a very real sense of you do your thing and I'll do mine--the foundation of the "hike your own hike" mantra--but also humans are social animals, and put in a social context, the rules do change. So there's a strong force to stick with the group, even if what it does isn't necessarily what you would have done had you been on your own. This force is stronger in some than in others, but don't think that just because we started solo, or just because we play to the beat of our own drummers, that the group isn't a strong force!