Hiking Uphill: 2,841ft
Hiking Downhill: 3,420ft
Distance Hiked: 21 miles
Post by Melissa:
Yay! We actually managed to get up early like we planned and were able to start hiking by 6:30am! Finally we got our act together. Our daily hiking strategies are mainly formed around making it to water sources. We try to minimize the amount of water we carry on our backs by strategically planning when and where we get water. Unfortunately in the desert water sources can be scarce so we have to load up on more water then we would like to.
Early on in the morning we find that we must walk along a dirt road for several miles. We do see a few signs that there are people tucked away in these hills in homes off the grid. This sign caught our attention, especially the mentioning of the "Armed Guard".
We only needed to hike 1 mile into the trail to hit the 600 mile marker! Yeah baby! 600 big ones done! Whoohoooo!!
We reached our first water stop at Robin Bird Spring pretty early in the morning. Here we loaded up on water, made breakfast, and washed our feet and socks. We also ran into Trivia again here. He was making ramen noodles for his breakfast, we had oatmeal. Yum! The water tasted pretty good here and we were happy it was flowing strongly and it was free of cow poop and other contaminates.
We then continue to hike on and come across another water which we decide to pass on. Typically we only drink out of stagnant pools if that is our only option. Luckily we had enough water to skip this location.
The trail takes us into more pine trees. We couldn't be happier to have the shade and beauty!
Lunchtime! We take our lunch break at Lander's Meadow Campground. It's a detour off of the PCT but we must do it to collect much needed water.
Landers Meadow
The water coming into this trough is cold, fresh, and tastes amazing.
Me resting on our lunch break at Lander. Forgive the funny leg spred pose...I couldn't see Nick with my knees together and when he called out to me I opened my legs to spot him. Didn't know he had a camera on me. haha.
After lunch we continue to hike on. Bam...another burn zone!!
I'm so hot right here...wishing there was shade and a cold Coca Cola to save me...
There can be some interesting sights in these burn zones. Check out these tree skeletons. Kind of spooky but fascinating at the same time.
Willow Springs 12.6 miles ahead. That is where we want to end up for the night...we better keep moving!
Coming out of the burn zone
More hiking pictures
Is anybody out there?! :-)
8 more miles until Willow Springs. Sun is starting to set...got to keep on trucking!
Isn't this the coolest picture? Nick has a great eye for photography.
Sun is setting and we still have a ways to go...we will have to pull our headlamps out soon.
In order to get to Willow Springs to gather water and camp for the night we have to detour from the PCT. There were 2 routes we could use to detour with one being about a mile shorter than the other. We opted for the shorter route but this required we go down a gulch with a few boulder scrambles mixed in. At this point it's dark, we are nearly 20 miles in, I'm exhausted and my feet hurt. We find the gulch and start our descent into the darkness. It's not long before we come to the boulder scrambles. I'm a little freaked out because these boulders are HUGE! It's dangerous and there is no room for error.
Nick has a rockclimbing background so he is trying to pick our routes. I veto his first suggestion which involved at 6ft drop off of a giant boulder to the sand below. I said I wanted to take another route which involved climbing down some sketchy boulders, loose gravel, and not very good hand or foot holds. In the end I think my route was more dangerous...lol...but we got down it eventually. For the future scrambles I let Nick set the route and we managed to get down safely. This was scary as hell but also quite exciting. We were off trail in the dark, sliding around on loose rocks, and trying not to fall and break anything. Thank goodness we made it down!
This is me happy to have survived the scariest boulder scramble.
While we were walking in the bottom of the gulch we saw a few scorpions out hunting. Nick caught a cricket and was trying to feed a scorpion but that didn't work out too well. LOL
After walking down the gulch for a while Nick felt like we were getting lost so he left the gulch and started bush whacking his way into the darkness. He was confused and trying to use Halfmile's app to get us to the spring. I had to remind him that we were supposed to stay in the gulch until it intersected a dirt road. He reluctantly agree to get back into the gulch. But he did and we continued walking and shortly therafter found the road. The instructions then said to turn right and walk for .2 miles to the spring. We walked and walked and it must have been 3/4 of a mile and I called out to Nick who was marching ahead in the darkness and said that we surely must have gone further than .2 miles. He agreed but said he didn't see a spring behind us. I suggested we turn back because I had seen a fence and thought maybe it could be near that. Keep in mind it's pitch black and we can't see anything except a tiny area illuminated in front of our feet with our headlamps. We do turn around and then manage to find the spring. It was a water faucet piped down from a spring and it was just outside of that fence I had seen earlier. I was proud of myself for helping navigate. Most of the time I suck at navigation and would get us lost everytime. Tonight was different. Lessons learned: don't take scary detours in the dark...you'll end up lost!
We promptly set up our sleeping area cowboy style, ate dinner, and passed out. It had been a very long day and we were exhausted.
Glad you didn't get lost for too long! What a journey...really enjoying the latest updates.
ReplyDeletewhat a long day! the pictures and perspectives are really good and I was just thinking that when you said Nick had a good eye. Very cool to experience the wildlife at night too.
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