Figure 8:
Its 7:49am on Wednesday morning. I have been laying in my sleeping bag awake for a little while thinking about the fact that we are about to hike the final 20 something miles to Kennedy Meadows and what an accomplishment that is. Making it to KM is a pretty big deal for PCT hikers and Daddie Gizmo and I are no exception. Even though technically there are another 50 miles of Southern California desert after KM, this is the milestone that divides the desert and Sierras. 704 miles from the Mexican border! When we rode back to the trailhead in Tehachapi with Dale and Dave, Dave told us he had 3 takeaways from meeting us. I like that idea and am going to do three takeaways from this experience thus far through the desert and to KM:
1. I feel physically stronger and happier on a consistent basis than I can ever remember being in my adult life. Knowing that I can climb these mountains even when I am tired and looking back at how much I have improved since March makes its easy to see how much I have grown mentally and physically. When it comes to happiness, I have always been incredibly responsive to the outdoors, knowing that is where I feel most at peace. Camping has always been a favorite of mine, but being able to spend nearly all of the last 2 months outside feeling the wind, smelling the trees and flowers and being connected to the elements and has brought me to a level of internal peace that I hope to maintain for a long time.
2. I am more in love with my husband than I have ever been. This kind of trip is not for all couples, but in our case it has made us stronger. Being able to see him in such a good mood for so long, with his bright blue eyes, warms my heart regularly. When we took all the BS out of our lives and stripped down to the bare essentials and focused on the same goal day in and day out, it became obvious that we are a really really good team. Daddie Gizmo is an amazing hiking partner, fantastic husband and without question my very best friend in the world.
3. Last but certainly not least is that the experiences we have had in the first 704 miles of this trail have reaffirmed my faith in humanity. All the people we have met off trail, in towns or hitching rides, have shown me the kindness that exists in the world in a way I had not previously experienced.
Eventually, we both got up and out of the tent and on trail about 10 am for the second day in a row. The sky was completely cloudy this morning which made us just want to stay in our sleeping bags. We started straight up a mountain again and covered 1,000 ft in 2.3 miles where we got more water at Fox Mill Spring and continued on. As we were hiking we came across a dozen people eating lunch on the top of the mountain. It was a group of recent high school grads on a 3 week hiking trip. They seemed in good spirits – I’m sure graduating will do that to you! We also ran into a Mary who was on the trail taking photos of flowers and birds. It was really nice to stay and talk with her for a while because we love checking out all the flowers on the trail and she knew quite a bit. Even pointed out a flower to us that is named after Lewis and Clark and is the state flower of Idaho and rarely seen in this climate. We were about to walk right by it! 
Our original plan was to do 17 miles today so we could finish off Thursday morning with another 5 into Kennedy Meadows, but my legs were exceptionally tired from the steep climb yesterday. When I mentioned to Daddie Gizmo that I didn’t think I was going to make it 17 today he said he already knew 🙂
Burned the register??!!!
We stopped about 9 miles in and made a hot lunch of boil in a bag rice and another delicious curry from my father in law. I have been sooo hungry since we left Lake Isabella. I needed to make a meal during the day or I was going to start eating my shoulder strap. While we there we discussed our plan from KM. We need to get Daddie Gizmo to the dr to see about his knee. Since we don’t really know what will happen we are just going to go with the flow. Maybe we will need to take a couple weeks off for him to rest or they could just brace it or perhaps even surgery. He says it hurts but beyond that neither one of us knows how this will play out. Either way, we will be together and will make the best of whatever happens. It was another 4.5 miles to our campsite for the night and since we got there at 5:30 we had plenty of sunlight to wash a few things in the creek, cook dinner and be in our sleeping bags to watch the sunset over the mountain. Second night in a row that we have seen the sunset from our tent and I love it!!
Snow in the distance!
See the trail!
Our first target was a creek about 5 miles away. With all the steep ups and downs it took us 2 1/2 hours to cover these 5 miles. It was in the middle of this leg of trail that I finally had to confide in and Figure 8 that my knee which I had hyperextended about two weeks ago was not getting any worse but was also not getting any better. 
I pledged that I was going to power through to Kennedy Meadows and then we would decide exactly what to do. Our next leg today would take us up a very rocky trail along the edge of the mountains up our next target which was another 2500 ft climb. The cliff drop offs today were some of the steepest drops we’ve seen. Maybe 1500-2000 ft just a foot to the side of the trail. Along the way we came upon a big brown hairy Tarantula literally guarding the trail.
Right as we reached the creek a hiker named Swede passed us and another named False Start decided he would camp at the creek too. Camp food tonight was pretty good. 1/2 pound of canned ham cut up and boiled in water for the Idahoan mashed potatoes and to top it all of, a package of Velveta cheese sauce. Hearty calories for 2 hungry hikers.
Figure 8 had an airplane bottle of Makers Mark that one of her girlfriends, Chelsea, had sent to us which also helped us celebrate a good hard physical day and warm up a bit. We made rice and heated up some pouches of vegetable curry that Papa Romero had stocked us with that was surprisingly one of the better camp meals that we’ve had on the trail so far. Lace enjoyed playing with the fire while I rested in the tent. Now to watch the fire die down and sleep.
I had the best intentions of sleeping late since we didn’t need to be up early to hike and beat the heat. Plus, I thought sleeping on a full belly it would be impossible to get me out of my sleeping bag. Nope, instead I was up at 6:30 and in the rec room making coffee before 8. Daddie Gizmo was snoring away until I got a text that said “Is there coffee?” Killing time while he slowly woke up I called my dad and got to catch up which was really nice. He loves the blog and is glad Daddie G and I are keeping in touch as much as we are. I expressed to him that I am nervous and scared for the Sierras coming up, but that we are heading in and going to do it until we feel it’s too dangerous. My hope, obviously, is to make it all the way through, but this is a very unusual and risky year with 200% above average snowfall. The creek crossings become very dangerous with the snow melt.
It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.
Big open views of the mountains, some new flowers, patches and patches of yellow flowers and pine trees. I had a very strong feeling as I was hiking that I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing at that moment. I was overwhelmed by the postcard beauty I was walking through while listening to The Xx and then Stevie Nicks.
Daddie Gizmo was also having a great morning and the miles to the highway went fast. We arrived at Walker Pass campground where we planned to hitch a ride, signed the trail register and saw that there was a cooler there with cold sodas and a sign indicating food and rides to town below.
Instant smiles and even more pep in our step! We hustled down below to find Carly, an amazing trail angel, waiting with donuts, sandwich fixings, cold beer, whiskey, sodas, Oreos, bagels and more. This was heaven. Also there was the lady we met on the horse as well as a couple other hikers. We all sat around and chatted, laughed, ate and drank at 10:30 in the morning. Carly and her friend Hannah (who was also helping but was picking up more donuts when we arrived) had done two weeks on the trail this year and decided it wasn’t for them. They love the trail though and wanted to still be involved so they decided to do the other side – trail angeling. They were both great.
Both yesterday and today we have had wide views of the Mojave. This part of the trail has a lot of loose sand that makes every step take more effort. It reminds me of when we hiked the Lost Coast trail in Shelter Cove, CA.
Oh, the snacks. I got there first and when I saw Daddie Gizmo come around I yelled, “There is food!.” He was thrilled. This meant we could eat a good snack before lunch and not be rationing our food before getting to town. Phew!!! The cache had charging packs for phones, duct tape, pop tarts, Nutella, granola bars, peanut butter, aspirin and more. We ate, refilled H2O, charged our phones and left $5 in the donation box. What a treat!! Feeling refreshed and refueled we headed out for another big climb – 1800ft up over 3.5 miles and then came down the mountain another 2.5 miles before having our siesta. 
This was our first rattlesnake encounter (except the one in the cage at Vazquez Rocks) and it was HUGE!!!!!!! We made it safely around and to the creek where Rubberball, Mellow, Hunter, Tatters, Rex and Akunah were all sitting and having some food in the shade. You will always find hikers in the shade of the desert. As Tatters said later that day, “it’s a rare resource out here.” There is about ten hikers – those guys I mentioned and couple others – who are all camping together every night, usually at a water source. We enjoy seeing them during the day but like to camp by ourselves. Out of the creek we continued through the pine trees and big boulders.
It was a beautiful morning and easy miles in the shade. But those first 7 shaded miles soon opened up to the desert sun. As we were walking we ran into a new face, Guate. I chatted with him while we hiked for a while. He said he hasn’t seen anyone in 3 days, is from Guatemala and is a mountaineering guide. He takes people on big mountaineering trips in Pakistan and Guatemala. He is MUCH FASTER than us, doing 26-28 miles a day, so we won’t be seeing much of him. In the mid-afternoon, after hiking in the direct sun, we were so glad to arrive at a water cache near Kelso Road where it crossed the trail. Last years hikers put 50+ gallons of water there which was much needed because that stretch was really dry. A bunch of us relaxed a bit with lunch (we finished the last of our cheese and bread with some salami) and refilling before heading out. The large group was planning on going another 5 miles, but we wanted to wait out the sun and hike late in the day around sunset to get a few more miles in. As we left the cache we saw trail magic! Someone had set a cooler in the shade with sodas, beer and oranges! We split a Busch beer, grabbed an orange for later and signed the trail register. We grabbed a bit more shade to wait out the day and then hiked our little hearts out till about 8:30. 
The sunset was beautiful, the moon was nearly full and we were hungry! We had officially done our first 20 mile + day. We hadn’t necessarily planned on it, but it happened and felt good. 21 1/2 miles!!! We set up camp under the moon and a Joshua Tree and quickly made a very bad dinner. We bought stuffing to try to make with the summer sausage but it was more like wet bread crumbs. It was probably our second worst meal. The orange though was FANTASTIC!
It was a 3000 ft total elevation gain today which seemed to come 1/2 at the beginning and 1/2 at the end. Very good luck today that we hiked in between 2 bubbles of other hiker groups and had the trail all to ourselves again. The middle of the hike was a very pretty and diverse since it went in and out of pine trees, rock canyon wall edges and grass meadows. Lots of flowers still blooming, too. We proudly crossed the 600 mile marker along the way to our camp site.
Lacy was really looking for some place out of the way of and with a view. After our water fill, she scouted out a little hilltop, a hundred ft off and up from trail that was perfect. Just enough room for one tent and the sunset.
It was cool n still gray when we finally emerged from our cocoon today. It was also almost 9am. Sleeping in when we know the weather today would be cooler from the rain last night was the plan from the time we went to sleep last night. We had a big climb out of the high canyon we were in to another higher and then another higher canyon before finally dropping down to out target water source 12.5 miles into the day.
We met a German girl going southbound and stopped to chat with her. She was on her gap year, traveling around the world. For 1 of her 4 weeks in the USA she chose the Walker Pass to Tehachapi section of the PCT to hike which is the most remote and longest water carry 1 week stretch she could have chosen. It’s a beautifully brutal 94 miles. Golden Oak Spring was a welcome sight after slowly using all of our water over the previous 25 miles.
We took an 30 minute nap, loaded up again and aimed for a camp site 5 miles away to finish the day. Freeze dried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes followed by 2 Cupcakes for desert. Snug in our fluffy bags under a big bright moon. Tomorrow is going to be hotter even at this altitude so the alarm is set early.
Modern Gypsy Tales 