Mile 493 - 598: Desert Brain

Near the top of Burnt Peak of the Sierra Pelona 

Preface: This was a particularly mentally tough week that left me rather uninspired to write. My thoughts were much more internal and personal. This entry may be a bit boring and it took me a while to compile, but things did resolve by the next week.

Hike down to Hikertown

Mile 500. I descend from Burnt Peak into the Mojave today. The heat is on, but there are a lot of oak trees at the higher elevations. Looking down into the valley seems daunting, there is some real heat down there. I find a well flowing creek to bathe and do laundry. I’ve been pretty good about keeping my clothes and myself clean.  About 200 meters past there are some trail angels providing water and snacks. An Australian fellow swears we left on the same day and shows me a photo. Yep, that’s me. I don’t know how I haven’t been hiking with anyone from that day. The day is hot and I carry on. I’m headed to Hiker Town, a bit of an infamous hiker stop. It’s built like a western, things are free, and reports of creepy owners are not exclusive. Still, a place of respite is needed after trudging through the hills. I arrive after a long road walk and promptly hop in the truck that is headed to the Neenach Market. A bit of a rundown place, a lot of ideas that got 10% through, but it’s where I can sleep and get stocked up for the aqueduct hike. 

An Unexpected Guest

I’ve been waking up to find earwigs in my tent for a few days now. Concerning since I have no clue how it’s happening. I finally get fed up and decide to completely empty my bag. I knew I had a bit of detritus in the bottom of my bag, but I paid it no mind. What I didn’t expect was there to be a whole ecosystem at the bottom of the bag, with a large camel spider at the top of the food chain. I thought these things just existed in the Middle East, seeing photo of them from soldiers serving during the Iraq War. Here I have one controlling the earwig population in my bag. I decide it’s time in my bag is over, but the desert seems to be its home anyway.

I procrastinate starting what is known as one of the hottest and most exposed hikes until 10am, during a heat wave. You could say that it was a stupid move, because it was. After over 500 miles I finally get to use my umbrella, nearly dropped it in a hiker box (kind of like random loot boxes) a few times. I strap it to my pack and start moving my feet. After a while my feet no longer feel like they belong to me, they’re owned by the trail, or rather at this moment, this dirt road. The consistent plod, plod, plod of my feet is something that’s grown similar to metronome. I see Joshua Trees on my left. I watch as crows catch the updrafts. Digging catholes out here is a challenge. There can be a point where all the oatmeal, olive oil, and trail mix hits and you got to dig fast. Walking all day really speeds things up to, some of the best digestion I’ve ever had in my life. But there are moments of panic, furiously chopping at the hard, cooked soil, with a fragile, aluminum trowel. “DAMMIT, COME ON!”, I yell while I sweat not from heat but from worry that I can’t dig a cat hole quick enough. I’ve heard you haven’t hiked the PCT until you’ve pooped yourself, I’m making it a point to defy that, but today, may be my day. But like striking oil, I hit an old (I’m hoping) ground squirrel hole. Ha, I’m saved. This is the desert for me.

This section through the Mojave was hot and boring, and it seemed to bring out some things I had not been wanting to think about. The heat is shameless this day. I stumble upon some trail magic, some cold gatorades. Around 2pm I think, “oh, damn, this is really hot haha”. The temperature was around 95 degrees and there was no escape. I’m still not sweating a crazy amount, but the heat feels like an oven, but I’ve been in extreme heat before. I get through the hottest part of the day and make my way to Horse Creek Canyon at the base of the Tehachapi mountains. I have to walk through windfarms to get there. I arrive late, but thankful I’m near water and out of that valley. The heat has worn me out and I sleep right next to the creek.

Wind Tunnel

I wake up feeling a bit refreshed. I watch as little critters get their morning water. First a chipmunk, takes a long drink, preparing for the day, then a ground squirrel grabs a quick sip. “Little pocket monsters”, I think. My body feels pretty unresponsive, it’s sluggish. I did about 24 miles the day before but I think it’s heat that really drained me. Guess I’m not invincible. I don’t pay attention to the trail very well and a rattler strikes at me. No warning and well hidden, but I jump away with cat like reflexes. I’m a bit more vigilant at least for the next hour. This really does feel the most out of tune I’ve been with my body, and my thoughts are still heavy. Coming out of the Tehachapi mountains you view a spectacle, the largest wind farm in the North America, the second largest in the world. And do you know what there’s a lot of? Wind. Insane wind. Wind that wants to flick you off the mountain like an ant off a picnic table. 

I’m over it, I start booking it down the mountains, all the while texting Cam about staying in Tehachapi. I get this feeling I want to stay one last night on trail, right next to the pickup spot, but it doesn’t take much convincing for me to decide to come to town. I roll off the trail, thinking what I should do to get ride, when no sooner do some folks show up who have a ride coming, I’m invited to join. I gladly accept. I tell them of my past two days, a new trail name is bestowed, “Heatwave”, as almost no one did the aqueduct during the day this past week. I arrive to the hotel and find Cam, Louis, and Comet chilling in the hot tub, drinking some brewskies and sucking down ciggies. My legs are still dirty from the day but I just hop in the pool. The hot tub looks to have the same clarity as the hot springs a few hundred miles back, not great, but not a problem if I don’t think about it. Their hotel room is littered with beer and pizza boxes, just a few good boys having a good time. We end the night with some Harry Potter.

New shoes, new me?

I spend the next few days in Tehachapi. My parents had sent a package which included my newer shoes, same model. My current ones were done, had been done for a while. The bottom treads worn off looking more akin to climbing shoes than hiking ones. I had spoken to some friends about both the accomplishment of 500 miles and a little disappointment. We’re nearly a fifth of the way done. Disappointed because it feels it’s happened so fast, the end is that much closer. We still have over 2000 miles, so it is strange to feel that way, but it isn’t exclusive. I’ve also discussed with folks the hiking guilt, which is also a funny thing. To be resting when we should be hiking, it’s all we know at this point. I begin to think I need to change my hiking strategy, because I haven’t been in a great mood for a week or so now. I do talk to others about it, and there seems to be very similar feelings around. The last section really wore on people. 

The day I head out the wind is blasting and there is little to no cover, more wind farms. I fight the wind, left, right, head on, rarely getting a tailwind. The trail wears on me more. I find camp out is the wind, a calm in whatever felt like a battle of a day. I lay in my bed, and everything seems to hit me. Perhaps it’s the exhaustion, the time on trail, the strange loneliness, but I break down. I break down because something I’ve been trying to figure out for a few years now finally clicks. I’m not going into what it was, we can do that face to face, but it feels like a math equation I’ve been working on for years, taunting and tormenting me, now solved. Not just logically, but in my heart, and it feels a burning flame has finally been extinguished. I sleep the best I have in months, I have been released.

I didn’t intend for the trail to be some psychic event. I didn’t want it to be this thing that I, “find myself” or figure out my future, to get my skeletons cleaned out. I thought I did that work before the start, I didn’t want to project that onto the trail. But it quickly became something that made unresolved things quickly visibly, and turned into an inescapable psychic event.