Day 55: Mile 651.3 - 659.7
So how do you get *out* of town?
You'd think Ridgecrest, a town of 28,000, would have Uber/Lyft. But Uber said no cars available, and Lyft didn't say anything but the map was devoid of vehicles. Hmm, I checked Guthooks and there was a hiker named Traps who had just posted that she had rented a car and was providing rides between Ridgecrest and the trail. So I texted her asking about that. That was Plan B, but this was just a Guthooks comment, so I invoked Plan C: I called up Sandy, a well-known trail angel in Ridgecrest, and asked her advice. Well, I'm at work or I'd give you a ride, she said, but there are a couple of hikers at my place who are taking the bus to Walker Pass later today. You can go over to my place and wait with them. And so Plan D was born, and she texted me her address and the bus schedule, and off I went to her place.
Her place was just around the block from the hotel, so it wasn't a long walk. I knocked and a guy let me in and two dogs immediately started yapping at me. You have to pet them, the guy said over the din, and I dropped my bag and--heeding what I'd learned from Kenny back on the road walk--crouched down to pet them. And the guy was right: once I pet them, they were fine with me.
The guy I would learn was Hangn' Out (real name Darryl?), and the bus wouldn't come by until past 2:30pm, and it was noon, so we had some time to kill. I worked on some blog entries, charged my phone, Hang'n Out took some calls, but we did chat a little bit, mostly about the upcoming trail. A bit after I got there, the other hiker, Bonobo, came back: he's been at the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet chowing down. We all talked, more trail stuff, and then around 1pm, I got a text from Traps about the ride and called over. Yes, she was still providing rides, she could give Hang'n Out and me (Bonobo was taking another zero) a ride at around, 1:30pm? She had to pick up two other hikers at the Walmart (about two miles away), but the car sat four and she'd swing by after. Sure, I said, we'll take it. And so Plan D was out and Plan B was back in!
(I did get to meet Sandy for a bit when she came back home for lunch from 1-1:30pm. She was having a boring day at work; I think she works in the medical field so I asked if boring or busy days are better. Oh definitely busy days, she said. She was a nice person--I mean, she opens her home up to random hikers, let's them use her washer/dryer and bathroom, gives full run of the kitchen and even has snacks (candy and donuts sure, but bananas--bananas!--so good!), it was pretty amazing, actually. Pity I didn't get to know her better, from what Hangn' Out and Bonobo said, she's pretty cool.)
But that was the way out of town: catch a ride with Traps. Traps was another May start-date hiker, had started out and on day one her group found themselves at Lake Morena, at the 20-mile mark. And then the next day they decided, hey, let's hit Mount Laguna at the 41-mile mark, and so on, doing 25-30 mile days. (For reference, I didn't get to Mount Laguna until Day 4.) And she'd gotten hurt at one point, but had hiked through it for a while, before finally resting and taking a zero. Yeah, these May-start-daters, they're another breed compared to plodders like me! But Traps was very nice, very bubbly personality, liked doing this sort of trail magic for folks (due to some external factors, her group isn't leaving Kennedy Meadows until June 15th, so they have a few days to kill and she was getting tired of being cooped up in a hotel room with 6 other hikers), talked the whole way. Very pleasant, actually, a great to get a ride. Just, yeah, being in a group of more than two I shut down and didn't say much--that's the introversion for you--and being a slowpoke I didn't have much to say either!
Anyway, she dropped me off at the Walker Pass Campground and I started hiking. I met up with Hangn' Out at Walker Pass formal about a mile up the trail, and we started the climb up over the mountain together. I talked with Hangn' Out on this part for a spell--I'll include it below--but he was aiming for 5 miles and I was aiming for 11 so eventually we split up. I didn't make 11--only got in 7 and change. I could have pushed and made it, but I had done that coming out of Tehachapi and felt late every day afterward, so this time decided to stop earlier, make camp, and try to get an early start on tomorrow. The trail at this point continues climbing up over a mountain, so I'm basically at an outward turn, where on one side is the desert and on the other side more mountains, and the wind has picked up quite a bit. I had set up my tent and, as I was eating dinner, noticed the wind getting worse--Sandy had checked the weather report which had said 20 mph gusts at Walker Pass--so I packed up my tent and moved downhill a bit, to another site tucked here between some bushes. The footprint of this site is just a bit smaller than that of my tent, so it was a tight pitch let me tell you!, and the wind is now howling hard and loud up above. It sounds absolutely terrible up there! Every now and then something gets through and my tent buffets and shakes, but overall I feel ok. (Or maybe I'm just saying that to make myself feel better.) I feel like I'm in a couch fort as a kid, somewhere small and kinda makeshift and kinda hidden, and there's a certain amount of safety there, whether justified or not. I had originally hoped the wind was a transitional thing--something that would go away once night fell--but the opposite seems to be true, it seems to be getting worse! We'll see in the morning if I'm still here and my tent's still standing!
-- Ridgecrest > Walker Pass Campground > Walker Pass/SR 178 > Campsite
-- Sandy also lets folks stay at her place, do laundry there, take showers, all the comforts of home. I had considered doing so, but then read that she has cats and, while I'm good with cats in short stints as Leslie and Dan can attest, overnight I think my allergies would get the best of me!
-- When I met Kenny, I asked if I could pet Bacon and Donut and he said sure so I leaned over to do so. And they immediately backed away. You don't have dogs, do you, Kenny asked and, no, didn't, and didn't grow up with them either. If you lean over them you intimidate them, you scare them, he said, you have to crouch down so you're at their eye level. Ah, I didn't know that. At the end of my walk with him, I went to pet them again and this time I did crouch down--harder than you think when you're a thru-hiker, the knees really don't like that crouching motion!--and they let me pet them. So lesson learned and, here, at Sandy's place, lesson applied!
-- Hangn' Out's an interesting guy: studied math and business administration in college (really, an actual math major!), then became an actuary, didn't like working in a cubicle all day (although the money was good) so opened a bar, did that for 7 years, sold it, then has been doing tax preparation since. Isn't that back to working in a cubicle, I asked. Yeah, but it's only 3 months out of the year, he said. Hang'n Out is actually about my age--he's 45--and as he says, he was a couch potato before starting the trail. He started on April 21st--a bit later than me--but he's in the same boat as far as now getting passed by all these fast folks. Anyway, he had an interesting line in the car. The conversation had drifted into how the trail restores your faith in humanity and he agreed: I hate people, he said, but I like individuals. And there's a certain truth there: people in aggregate do some terrible things, but most of the people you meet and talk to face-to-face are actually pretty nice. And I suspect that's true even off trail. But that line is very Hangn' Out: wry and dry humored, but still, honestly?, pretty hopeful.
-- Oh, and Ridgecrest was an experiment. Up until now, every time I've gone into town I've basically ended up zeroing (except maybe Acton KOA), but that's not going to be viable later on--I'll be running out of days. So Ridgecrest was an attempt to see if I could get into town, resupply, and get of out town, while only spending one night. And overall, it worked out pretty well; the only tricky bit would be it took me longer to get out of town that I had thought. But two days of lesser mileage is still better than the same plus a day of zero mileage, so I'm going to say the experiment was a success!
Comments
Post a Comment