The Walking Dom

Mile 750 / KM 1207
Tehachapi to Lone Pine

Song stuck in my head: "Locked In" by Complete Control (that whole album is great)
I miss: Apfelschorle

Take everything that makes hiking in a desert difficult, like sandy uphills, crazy winds, heat, no shade, no water, throw it all in a blender and what you'll get is my past one and a half weeks. The desert kicked my ass one more time on the last 90 mile stretch and I am so happy it's over. I often wonder who built this trail since who ever did it really took the word "crest" rather seriously. Not a single peak gets left out along the way and you are either climbing up or descending a mountain. Who came up with this? And who's dumb enough to walk it for no particular reason? I am!

Somehow I made it through all that sweaty madness to Kennedy Meadows: the doorway to the Sierras. The place itself is a little less magical than I expected it to be, since Kennedy Meadows is pretty much a tiny General Store in the middle of nowhere. And when I say nowhere I mean nowhere. Cell phone reception is 22 miles away. The General Store also serves as the post office, the laundry place, the shower, the bar, the restaurant and the camp site all in one. The staff there is awesome and they are trying their best to cope with the hoards of excited hikers that roll in every day but it's almost impossible since there are just too many of us. It's true that since the movie Wild came out the number of people hiking the PCT has exploded. Kennedy Meadows is a good place though. There's a fridge with cold beers and sodas, they serve pancakes in the morning and they fire up the BBQ at dinner time. All you need on a Zero day.

I must have been the happiest little hiker on the planet this morning. Right when I woke up I peaked out of my tent and all I saw was green! Green trees everywhere and not a single cactus! It was an ice cold morning. By noon I had crossed several streams and made it up the first incline only to find what I think is one of the most beautiful views so far: the Sierras and Mount Whitney in the center of it. After I had almost lost all of my motivation to hike the PCT in the desert, I found it again right there on that mountain top.

On a totally different note I got some bad ass new gear for the next section that I am very excited about. First and foremost I got a new pair of ONs waiting to be hiked in. It's with a heavy heart that I part with my old ones since they have been so good to me. I made it all the way here without getting a single blister or holes in my shoes. That's pretty damn impressive. I hope my next pair is going to do just as good of a job.

I also got a ridiculously cool Ice Axe, Micro Spikes and a Bear Vault 500. Not a fan of the vault since it fucks up the packing system that I have perfected over the past 6 weeks but it is required in the Sierras and I'd rather carry the vault than have a bear crawl into my tent at night. In case you have no idea what I am talking about you are not alone. Before I started planning this trip I had never even heard of a bear vault. It's a heavy and thick plastic container that bears can't open (I struggle to open it myself every morning!). Every night you put all of your food items and anything scented like tooth paste in the container and you place it about 30 meters away from your tent into the woods. Now you've learned something and reading this post wasn't a waste of time after all.

The meadows and the hills we are walking through remind me of Switzerland. The only difference being that you would find an Alphütte every five kilometers serving Rivella and Rösti and playing jodler music. Here it's just you and nature and maybe 15 other hikers and nothing else for miles and miles.