Brad's Adventure

All of the desert hates you. Even the plants have spikes on them.

Days 40 – 48

Miles 566 – 703

The day out of Tehachapi was one of regret. There were like 3 different things I had forgotten to buy, I left a water bottle in the hotel room, and I had forgotten to do anything about my knee pain. I was too distracted  with eating and sitting in the hot tub to do chores.

This section from Tehachapi to Kennedy Meadows South (KMS) is probably the driest and most desert-y of the whole trail. We started off with a 16 mile water carry, into a 20 mile water carry, and then shortly after a 35 mile water carry. And pretty much all of it looked like the cover photo for this post.

Thankfully some thoughtful and very generous individuals usually maintain water cashes at mile 7 and 22 of the 35 dry miles, so it wasn’t downright dangerous like it would have been without the cashes.

Anyways, the first few long carries were pretty generic days. At this point Hot mess is a part of the crew so it’s us three. Smokey left us as he decided to carry 6 days of food and hike all the way to KMS (mi 703), while we carried 4 days and would hitch into town at Walker pass (mi 650) then do another 3 days to KMS.

One fun little thing that happened was another night hike up a mountain after the second water cashe. We had 22 miles until our hitch at Walker pass and I don’t like doing big days into town so I suggested we night hike 4.5 mi and get the last big hill out of the way. It was a fun time, spirits are always higher in the desert when the sun goes down. You feel so much more energized, the difference is staggering. We got a sweet view of Ridgecrest, Inyokern, and other unknown towns at night. I tried a picture but it was too blurry. Seth and I argued about which distant mountain range silhouette was the sierras,  I don’t think either of us were right.

The day we got into Walker pass we met a guy, Cameron, at Mcgyver’s cabin and spring. It’s a run down tiny cabin with signatures written all over the inside, mostly hikers. We saw one from ’74. We chatted for a bit then finished the charge down to Walker pass by 2. My knees were absolutely killing me on the downhill as I had forgotten to do anything about them in Tehachapi. There was some trail magic happening at the campground at Walker pass and we saw the man, the myth, the legend himself, Solaris. He had left his trekking poles in Tehachapi and someone had let him borrow theirs for a few days and he’d just leave them at KMS. The community out here is extremely generous. Our plan was to hitch to Ridgecrest and resupply/find a place to stay. Cameron showed up and was going to go into lake Isabella, in the opposite direction, but due to the lack of cars and the fact that an Uber was $50 the four of us split an Uber into town.

The Uber showed up and I won’t go into details to respect privacy but it was not exactly 5 star driving. We made it there alive though and walked a few blocks in the 105 degree heat to Shoddy’s taps for a pizza and some beer. The pizza was good and I was disappointed to find out that despite the name, there were only two beers on tap. Cameron booked us an Airbnb that was only two blocks away and we headed over. Doing laundry and taking a shower after 5 days of sweating in the extremely dusty desert is a feeling I cannot do justice with words.

The hostess lived in the Airbnb and she was a lovely lady. She left right after we got there to go to a town hall meeting in order to protest a proposal to build a data center in Ridgecrest, the town with a water shortage where it’s over 100 degrees 6 months of the year. Not even us PCT hikers can escape the AI revolution apparently.

She made us coffee and brought us donuts in the morning. We chatted about trail stories for a bit then told her we’d keep Ridgecrest in our prayers as we set off to go loiter inside a McDonald’s for 5 hours. At 430pm a trail angel, Larry, picked up the 4 of us and took us back to the trailhead at Walker pass. Larry is the MAN. Coolest trail angel ever. He’s a semi-retired physician and gave us a great story on how it’s a husband’s job to mildly annoy his wife, and that his wife loved the outdoors but hated hiking. When she passed away he said he started being a trail angel to PCT hikers! He told us about the giant military testing grounds by Ridgecrest and how the shaped explosives that would eventually be used to detonate atom bombs were researched there.

Although we were all dreading the heat that evening it worked out perfectly. Most of the climb was in the shade by 530. We were in proper mountains now and although it was still desert-hot you could tell we were getting close to the sierras. We night hiked until about 1030 then set up camp. The three of them camped by the trailhead and I found a nice quiet spot down by the water source.

The next morning I needed a break from the synchronized schedule that being in a group of 4 requires so I rolled out of bed on my own time and started walking. I let the group know I’d see them up the trail as they were still packing up. After a few hours I was feeling good and did some math in my head and figured I might be able to hike all 38 miles to KMS by around 11pm. An unhinged plan but I like to push my limits. I kept up the pace and took minimal breaks and found myself 18 miles in by 2, where we originally had planned to stay for the night. The next few hours were the hardest as it was very hot and I had to climb 2k feet up to 8000 elevation but when I made it to the top the rest was smooth sailing. I hit the 30 mile mark around 630-7 and decided to call it. The day clocked in at 30 miles, 6000 feet of climbing, and 5500 decent. Not bad for a 730 start. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it if I wasn’t so excited to be leaving the desert behind. It really was starting to look like the mountains. I even saw an actual river.

The next morning I speed walked into Kennedy Meadows, and finished the 9 miles just before 9am. I walked up the road with Skyline, a guy I met who manages a climbing gym so we chatted a bit. The tradition at Kennedy Meadows South is all the hikers clap for people coming in and we got a pretty good one because breakfast was in full swing. I got up to the general store at 8:57 and breakfast closed at 9 so they let me order. I then sat around and enjoyed my plate-sized pancakes and coffee while I waited for the rest of my group to show up.

They got in around 1-2 and we spent the rest of the day drinking and catching up with other hikers we knew and hadn’t seen in a while. The next two days were zeros also spent here but in the interest of catching up on these posts I’m skipping over them. We really didn’t do much other than eat and hang out with our group and Seth’s dad, who arrived the first night and hung out with us the whole time. Here’s a picture of an even bigger pancake from the other place you can eat at KMS.