Big road walk all day.

It was hot. In the upper 80’s, but that’s not too bad. What was bad was the gnats! I got a lot of arm exercise waving them off. Almost put on my head net, but it was too hot.

I was making good time on the road. I did 18 miles in 7 hours. I only had an hour or so to go to get to Hikertown, when Terri Anderson and my friends from Humboldt drove by and offered me a ride. Hell yes! When I walked out of Green Valley I thought I would walk until my feet hurt, and then maybe hitch. Well, my feet were definitely hurting, so, mission accomplished there.

Well, Hikertown was kind of weird and I hate sleeping cheek to jowl with other hikers, so I rested for a few hours, had some rocks for my whiskey. I hung out with Space Kitty and Goulet. Space Kitty showed us her special powers with chickens (she grew up on a chicken farm, or something). She’s lucky her trail name didn’t get changed to “Space Chicken”. Then I headed back out into the desert.

I was hoping to walk for an hour and camp but, yeah, nothing. Ended up walking for three more hours. But I did find a nice spot in a dry streambed. I am a Hydrologist.

LA Aquaduct (above ground section)

The road walk and my other efforts today have me almost a whole day ahead. I can slow down and take my time into Tehachapi. Except this is no kind of country you would want to spend time in.

Oh yeah, all day my pack has been really heavy because for some reason I have about 8 days of food for a 4 day walk, plus all the water.

There was a scale at Hikertown. I think I have lost about 5 pounds (140), and my pack with all the food and water was 37 pounds leaving. Ouch.

But after two hours rest I felt alright and limped for another three hours! This might be the hottest, most exposed part of the trail so I’m hoping to get up early again and do as many miles as I can before it gets hot.

The LA aqueduct (covered section). Not a great trail tread, but I tried it for a while for variety.