Here is the 16th installation of my PCT trail journal (about two weeks off the present timeline as a safety precaution).

And so begins my journey through the desert. Mexico bound!

Follow my thruhike in section-by-section blog posts, or in daily posts on Instagram or Facebook (@JustAGirlAndABackpack.Blog). Please attribute all spelling/grammar errors to autocorrect and exhaustion at the end of the day.

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Statistics for the second part of my journey are as follows:

Statistics for this section (Walker Pass to Tehachapi) are as follows:

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PCT 2021 Series: Saturday October 30, mile 2078 to mile 2087.1 (9.1 miles, day 29)

Saturday I woke up at 5am for unknown reasons, but decided since I was up, I might as well get the most out of my day so I wouldn’t spend too much time in Tehachapi.

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The views seem to be getting less exciting, which is unfortunate, but hopefully further south won’t be worse.

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I used the Seek app to answer a question I had: if the Joshua trees were different from these other plants that just looked like smaller Joshua trees, and the answer was: yes! One is the Mojave yucca which branches less and has longer leaves.

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The wind was pulling me around a little, but nothing I couldn’t handle. About 3 miles from the trailhead, I called some trail angels that Be Positive had recommended and asked if they could give me a ride to town in an hour and a half. They said of course!

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Cheryl came to get me from the overpass where the trail crosses highway 58. She’s a super friendly older woman who gave me a quick run through of town and dropped me off the Kelcy’s for the best breakfast and told me to go to the bakery afterwards before giving her a call to come pick me up again to bring me to her house.

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I got a yummy breakfast, and the toast that came with it was so delicious and fluffy (probably from the bakery across the street). The waitress was friendly and saw my pack and immediately showed me where the outlets were. They’ve clearly seen hikers here before 🙂 I got some cookies and a loaf of bread for my hosts at the bakery and then called to get picked up.

Ted and Cheryl have a lovely house a few miles out of town where they regularly host hikers. Cheryl gave me a robe, took my dirty clothes, and told me to shower and hang out.

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Then she brought me to the Big 5 to get new shoes, since I’ve been slipping all over the trail in my old Hoka Ones that seem to have died in the last 50mi. I tried on so many pairs of shoes, but Big 5 just isn’t the place to buy real long distance shoes. I got some men’s trail runners that felt the most comfortable and made plans to have someone send me some shoes ASAP.

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Then I resupplied at Albertsons, got a new gas canister from Walmart and went back to their home for dinner. Delicious homemade beef stew, garlic bread and a beer. Ted was watching a baseball game in the other room, so after eating I joined him to chat for a few hours and Cheryl went to bed early.

I had a rousing discussion with Ted about environmentalism. He seems to want to keep the world beautiful in his own way, by removing the Hetchhetchi Dam, amongst other things, but thinks fracking is the best thing since white bread. Unfortunately, his arguments were more based on aesthetic than science, but he seemed to think that his biology degree from 50 years ago gave him authority on the subject, even though I have an environmental degree from last year. It was an interesting conversation to say the least. He offered me a shot of fancy rum (to sip!) but I declined.

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PCT 2021 Series: Friday October 29, mile 2057.1 to mile 2078, +.5 for construction detours (21.4 miles, day 28)

Today the scenery wasn’t very interesting. It reminded me of home, with dense chaparral and oak grasslands (and burn areas), although the species composition was a little different.

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The cows had clearly decided the trail was theirs, leaving footprints and poop everywhere, begging the question: was the PCT a cow trail before or after the PCT was built?

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I also saw what I thought was a bear print, but was a little hard to see.

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The section that passed through the wind farm was so exposed I had to stop to take lunch early in the shade of one of very few big trees, and then stop again within an hour because I was worried about heat exhaustion. I could see and hear the windmills from as close as I’ve ever been to a windmill, and the trail actually had several new detours since earlier this year they were doing construction of new windmills which was knocking massive boulders into the trail, which was dangerous.

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I saw several very clear bear prints and poops in this section.

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I discovered an alligator lizard, laid out across the trail with ants crawling on it; it was perfectly still and in full sunlight, and I thought it must be freshly dead, since its eyes were still intact. But when I poked it with my trekking pole, one leg twitched. I tried to nudge it off trail and it gave a few more wiggles, then it finally, slowly wriggled off trail. I don’t know if it was on the verge of death, or if a predator had dropped it and stunned it, or what.

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There was a water source, the first after a 19 mile carry, that was a large trough full of grayish water with metal grating and I don’t know what else in the bottom of it, plants growing in it and waterstriders everywhere. There was also a pipe dripping reddish, weird tasting water into the trough. I took my chances filling up out of the pipe, since it was at least moving (albeit at 3.5L/min which is slow af).

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The trail here seems to take its time: it follows the contours of the land instead of cutting across it, which adds length but reduces the need for big ups and downs.

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It also spends even more time on roads, the most recent section totaling over 4 miles. These sections bother me because A, road walking sucks, B, roads have a lot more real world trash like cans and glass bottles, which are too heavy and take up too much space for me to carry out, and C, there’s also so much trash everywhere.

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As I night hiked, I found a dead scrub jay, perhaps hit by a car, a Jerusalem cricket, which told me that somewhere nearby was wet, and a black widow.

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When I sat down to take a rest before the final push to camp, I turned my headlamp off because it seemed to be fading and I wanted to see the stars. After awhile, I did my typical glance around the mortal realm to assure me there wasn’t anything sneaking up on me, which is usually just out of paranoia. There was a black shadow on the road that I didn’t remember being there, but I mostly wrote off, until my paranoia made me shout at it, on the off chance it wasn’t a bush. It galloped off in a hurry when it realized my food (and myself) wasn’t for sale. It was most assuredly a bear because that was exactly how the last bear that ran away from me sounded: heavy, thumping footsteps, hitting the ground in a gallop. Needless to say, I stumbled quickly to my feet and kept up the shouting to make sure it didn’t just stop in the nearby bushes while I scrambled to turn my headlamp back on.

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I was ready to keep moving after that and was in a hurry to find a camp quickly as my headlamp slowly killed the rest of its battery. I didn’t want to get stuck confronting that bear again without a hands-free light.

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PCT 2021 Series: Thursday October 28, mile 2035.7 to mile 2057.1, +.9 to water sources (22.2 miles, day 27)

I woke up to the dark of 6:30am. The sun doesn’t rise until after 7:20.

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The scraggly Joshua trees were petering out and the ups and downs of the trail seemed steeper.

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Twice I heard a sound like that of a dog panting loudly nearby, and the second time I spotted the source: the strained flapping of a raven’s wings.

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I got to the next cache within two miles and filled up a little bit, expecting to stop at the next two springs so I wouldn’t have to carry as much water.

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I already felt that the miles weren’t passing as quickly, probably tired from the two previous days that I’d pushed miles, but I wanted to see if I could get a pattern of 20mi days going so that I could finish the trail a little faster, and have to carry less food and water weight.

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The trail entered a section in a ponderosa pine dominated landscape that was lovely to smell, and the next water source was off trail a bit, overflowing from a pipe that filled a basin, presumably for animals to drink from.

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“My feet were already aching and I kept wanting to rest, even though I’d only been about 10 miles”

Slowly Dying

I did lunch at the next cistern full of water, bit didn’t grab any since I had enough to get to the next source. My feet were already aching and I kept wanting to rest, even though I’d only been about 10 miles.

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The trail then wound through black oaks and pines, with the yellow leaves of fall coming from the deciduous oaks and willows in the long-dried waterways. I saw a single deer here, walking slowly away from me with not a worry in the world.

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The next part of trail, and for the rest of the day, was covered in cow patties and the ecosystem was oak dominated, with at least three species of oak.

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“[They] had described it as a place they were ‘worried Pennywise would crawl out of'”

Unknown Guthooks Commenter

The next water source was a little tricky. The basin where water used to pipe into didn’t appear to work any more, so I had to hop a fence that said “water not tested. Boil for 5 minutes,” which I didn’t do, I just filtered it, so if I die we know why. I also had to climb over a massive fallen tree and the water was in a half open concrete structure, black and reflecting back the darkness from its cover, with green duckweed floating around on top. Someone in the Guthooks comments had described it as a place they were “worried Pennywise would crawl out of,” and I thought that that description was too true, so I didn’t take any chances and just slowly let my water bladder fill up from the slow leak that was coming out of the dark cistern.

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While I was filtering, my stomach started rolling like it does when I have to go to the bathroom really badly, which was weird since I’d already gone today, and it had me wondering if maybe some of the water I’d had from one of the many strange sources had made me sick. I ate dinner in the last patch of sunlight, enjoying the yellows of fall and the end of the day. The gassy, crampy feeling didn’t leave me all evening, even when I did my business again, and I was careful not to let any gas out what the result would be and wouldn’t have easily been able to clean up if I had an unfortunate accident, considering the lack of water resources (and soap).

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“I came over a bump in the trail only to see two sets of glowing eyes that seemed to be floating at really strange heights, which freaked me out a little…especially as more eyes turned towards me from both sides of the trail”

Slowly Dying

I came over a bump in the trail only to see two sets of glowing eyes that seemed to be floating at really strange heights, which freaked me out a little, because it took me longer to figure out what the critters were, especially as more eyes turned towards me from both sides of the trail. These freaking black cows blend in to the blackness beneath the trees and barely create a silhouette. The one closest to the trail happened to be a bull that didn’t take too kindly to me trying to walk downhill of him and between some of his females. He eventually stalked off slowly and kept an eye on me as I carefully passed, keeping up a steady stream of conversation in the hopes that it would keep them apprised of my location and not surprise any of them into doing something stupid, like running me through with their horns.

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“Maybe the mother of the millions of little spiders with glowing blue eyes was keeping watch over her babies”

Slowly Dying

People had warned me about the wind in this section, but the only time I’ve experienced it so far was coming over a ridge that looked down on a valley full of the red flashing lights of the windmills. That’s a rather eerie sight, I must say, since if I hadn’t seen the windmills when there was still light, I wouldn’t have known why the hills were glaring and winking at me with red eyes, all in unison, like scary spiders from the movies. Maybe the mother of the millions of little spiders with glowing blue eyes was keeping watch over her babies.

There were also a lot of millipedes on trail as I approached the flat spot that would be my home for the night.

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PCT 2021 Series: Wednesday October 27, mile 2015.2 to mile 2035.7 (20.5 miles, day 26)

“I woke up today wondering if I should quit”

Slowly Dying

I woke up today wondering if I should quit. My tent and the top of my sleeping bag were almost soaking wet, and I was uncomfortably not as warm as I wanted to be while sleeping and getting ready.

I was up around 6am, hoping to start my day early to get some good hiking in, but everything was so wet it wasn’t worth hiking until things had dried out a little. If I got to camp that night after dark, with wet gear, the best that could happen would be a cold, wet night with little sleep. The worst would be hypothermia, or even death if the temperatures were cold enough. So I had to dry out my gear.

I hung everything in a tree that was in the only patch of sunlight nearby, and made some hot cocoa while I worked until 10:30 on the trail journals I had been neglecting in Bishop.

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Looking out as I hiked, I could see how the plant life receded the further the mountains sank into the valley, becoming barren earth.

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The oaks and pines became fewer, but the unusual profile of the Joshua tree became more ubiquitous.

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If you haven’t seen a Joshua tree, it’s hard to explain. They’re a scraggly species that can be anywhere from a foot tall and sticking straight up with little yucca spikes on top like hair, to 15 feet tall and 15 feet wide, with curling branches and elephant skin bark reaching out in all directions, spiky tufts all over.

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For the most part, they are scattered and random, but there was one section that can only be considered a Joshua tree forest, with the biggest trees I’d ever seen surrounded by ever smaller trees until the forest faded back into the more barren surroundings.

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The desert is full of roads and trails, which is interesting. But maybe that’s just because the scarred areas don’t return to normal like they do in wetter regions where the plants overtake the paths.

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There was one area that had a bunch of metal and rusty vehicles and some sort of old machine that I imagine must have been abandoned mining equipment. And I saw a few signs indicating that I should stay on trail to protect the desert tortoise.

“It made me realize how truly alone I was out here”

Slowly Dying

Right before I arrived at my first ever water cache, maintained by the amazing trail angel Devilfish, there was a trail register. I only recognized B’Shert and Guinness, and they were a few weeks back; the last person to sign the register was a couple of weeks old. It made me realize how truly alone I was out here.

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The cache had almost 300 gallons of fresh water in jugs, and a little map to find cow ponds nearby if the cache was empty. I ate lunch while I filtered 3L of water, not expecting to need all of it before the next cache, but wanting to be prepared and expecting to overnight between the caches.

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Although there are ups and downs in this section, they are comfortable and gradual and don’t really take it out of you. And the ground is sand that doesn’t hurt the feet as much as rocks, but isn’t so soft as to make you lose a step to every three you take. That being said, the softer surface does probably slow my momentum down with less to push off of. I’m going about 2.3 to 2.5mi/hr, which might be in part to the sand, but is mostly pack weight, if I had to take a guess.

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I did dinner at sunset, trying to catch the last rays before it got cold and then continued hiking in the dark.

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I had a fright when I saw a bunch of wide set eyes glowing at me from the dark hillside, and when I turned the brightness of my headlamp up I saw a herd of cows, which are usually safe unless there’s a bull or a mama with babies.

“As I looked up in the completely silent night, I realized again how alone I am out here, and felt lonely and a little sorry for myself”

Slowly Dying

My feet were hurting a lot and I sat down with my light off to enjoy the stars while I rested for a few minutes. As I looked up in the completely silent night, I realized again how alone I am out here, and felt lonely and a little sorry for myself. I saw 2 shooting stars, two satellites, a plane, a planet, and two constellations I recognized, as well as the Milky Way and all the stars in the sky.

It was nice to pull into camp and only have to set up and tuck in. A little mouse, which might have been a kangaroo rat but I need to confirm that, scampered up to my tent and I said “No!” It quickly ran away, thankfully. There was a lot of trash around, which I picked up some of, but the microtrash isn’t so easy to collect. Like an idiot, I spent time trying to blow up my sleeping pad with the exit valve open, so it wouldn’t blow up and for a good 10 minutes I thought there was a hole. I fell asleep with one of the storm doors open, since it was warm enough for the fresh air that would also help prevent condensation like I had had the night before.

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PCT 2021 Series: Tuesday October 26, mile 2002.3 to mile 2015.2, +.7 to bus stop (13.6 miles, day 25)

I woke up nice and early so that I could pack, eat, weigh my pack, and say my goodbyes without having to worry about missing the only bus to Inyokern. I also fixed the hole in my Cnoc Vecto bladder so that I could actually use it as water capacity in the desert.

My pack with full 6.5L (13lbs) of water and 6 days of food (10-12lbs) was a whopping 41 pounds that I can barely lift.

After saying ciao to David, Free, Stargazer, and River Wolf, I marched down the street towards the bus stop at Vons, stopping to grab a tasty blueberry muffin from Jack’s. At the bus stop, I was impressed by the amount of snow on the peaks of the Sierra to the west, which had been covered by clouds the day before. A man was waiting for the bus already and was very talkative about his mother-in-law’s illness. I called David and we chatted until he had to go.

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The bus ride was uneventful, with an interesting cast of characters that only occasionally distracted me from the books I was reading (I saw books plural because I finished one and started another while on the bus).

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When we arrived at Inyokern about 2.5 hours later, I went to Bernardino’s for tacos while I waited for Sandy the trail angel to get off work so she could bring me to the trail head. I was able to charge my phone and eat some Halloween candy in the entryway once I had overstayed my welcome at the table.

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Sandy arrived, and on the ride I learned she was a sweet lady who got into trail angeling on a a fluke when she randomly offered a hiker a ride in 2019 and learned all about the life. She had a log she asks hikers to fill out, and when I flipped through it, I recognized Tague (I believe I put Teg in my earlier journals, spelled incorrectly) and B’Shert–the last entry from 2 weeks ago. I haven’t seen her since Washington!

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Sandy dropped me at the trailhead and off I went, mildly regretting that I had switched my normal hiking shirt for a base layer since I was sweating already.

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The faded blues, yellows and reds of the desert were an interesting change from the Sierra, as were the wide open skies.

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The ground was surprisingly damp, from the rain storm presumably, and so were the mosses on trees and there were even puddles on rocks.

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For the most part I was hiking through chaparral shrubs, but in shaded valleys there were oaks and pines.

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I was really enjoying all of the lower altitude plants that I hadn’t see up in the Sierra, nor in WA & OR earlier in the year.

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As well as the desert natives, like the Joshua Tree.

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I was also enjoying the remnants of fall that were still apparent in the colors of the leaves and the pine cones scattering the ground.

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In some of the areas that weren’t getting sun this late in the year, frost and ice crystals had formed on the ground and fallen trees.

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There were even areas with snow! But only little patches here and there.

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I decided not to listen to an audio book or music today, and instead was immersed in my thoughts as I had been for the majority of the first 2 months I hiked in Washington and Oregon earlier in the summer.

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It’s hard to describe, but it was interesting to have thoughts again, and to really let my brain just think about whatever it wanted to think about without any distraction. Earlier in the year, I didn’t even bring earbuds and I was hiking alone, so all I could do for that first section was think, but after awhile I sort of ran out of things to think about, and that’s when I decided to get the earbuds and have had them ever since.

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The trail popped out into a dirt road right around sunset, so I followed that for a mile or two, skirting puddles and almost falling in once or twice because the mud was so slick and the road was overgrown with dense shrubs.

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Sunset lasted forever, with so many color changes.

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I ended up pouring 2L of water out, because I really didn’t need that much to get to the first water cache the next day and my feet and back were already killing me. Right after I turned off the road again, two trucks with bright colorful lights drove by. I’m kind of glad I wasn’t on the road when they came through after dark. I wonder if they were the ones leaving so much trash everywhere?

After that the trail sunk into the trees which are always more eerie at night because you can’t see the sky. At some point I realized I had a blister forming on my left heel, but I decided not to deal with it until the morning.

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I was nice and toasty in my baselayer hiking shirt and R2 midlayer, but it got colder once I got to camp. I took awhile to fall asleep since my sleeping bag alone wasn’t nearly as cozy as my nested bag and quilt had been before I made the (bad) decision to send the quilt home.

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Thank you so much for reading! What’s your favorite thing about the desert? Comment below!