The Walking Dom

Jun 6

Jun 6 The Bubble

Mile 566 / KM 910
Agua Dulce to Tehachapi

Song stuck in my head: "Angel of the Night" by The Steeldrivers
I miss: Non practical clothing. Like pants that don't unzip into 3 parts.

Only in the last couple of days have I realized that I haven't read the news for over a month. I literally have no idea what's up with the Kardashians or if Trump is about to become president. Only today did I hear that Mr. Ali had died! I'm in my own little hiking bubble and so is everyone else out here. When I started this trip I thought I'd be thinking of crazy new award ideas for Mercedes and what not, but there is absolutely no room for smart ideas between thinking about ants and food and where to get the next water from.

Tomorrow we'll tackle the final stretch of the Mojave and I won't say that I'm not happy to be moving out of the heat. It's been a long sweaty haul and even if I do think that night hiking is cool in its own way, it also messes up your entire sleeping and eating routine. For the last couple of days we've hiked from 6pm until 3am, since it’s impossible to hike during day time. There is more wildlife out during the night and it's interesting to see the desert in a new light. The other night there were thousands of moths flying around my headlamp. Katie even ate one by accident! We saw tons of scorpions, baby snakes, kangaroo rats and my first black widow. Needless to say that I did not cowboy camp that night...

I can't wait to get to Kennedy Meadows and into the Sierras. Don't get me wrong, the desert is absolutely beautiful but it's mostly hot, dusty and challenging. Up in the mountains we'll finally get some fresh cold air and water won't be as hard to find as out here. New challenges will come though like the higher altitude or steeper and longer elevation gains and bears and Ice Axes, and Micro Spikes and Cougars, glaciers and snow and all kinds of things, but I think I will feel much more at home in that sort of climate than in the desert. We'll see. One more week and we'll be there.

There's a fire closure right before Kennedy Meadows that everyone keeps freaking out about. They closed the trail for a couple of days but I think they re-opened it as of yesterday so we'll see what's up when we hit the closure in a couple of days, but before that we still have to go through the scariest part of the Mojave. A 40 mile / 64 km stretch without water. I have no idea how I am going to make it through that since my pack literally has no more space to fit any more water than the 6.5 liters that I'm already carrying. Maybe I could hire someone to carry 4 extra liters...

But those are the worries of tomorrow. Today all I'll do is sit in that Tehachapi Best Western pool in my practical underwear with some white wine in hand.