PCT: Days 21 – 24

Day 21

Start: Hiker Town – 517.6
End: Hiker Town – 517.6
Miles: 0.0

We woke up with the intention of getting back on trail after we receive our FedEx box. However, we didn’t get our box until 12:30 pm and by that time everyone else already had decided to take a zero. It didn’t take much convincing for us to also stay.

We spent the rest of the day just hanging out and getting to know each other . There were 6 of us: Jeff, Ellen, Dave, other Dave (All In), Mike (Old Goat), and Ryan

Ellen did some laundry the old fashion way using a scrub board and buckets of water. It’s amazing how much dirt came out of her shirt and socks.

Later in the afternoon Jeff got bored and Ellen talked him into fixing the door knob on our “room”. He then fixed another door knob. The group wanted to give home the trail name “Door knob” but he refused to accept.

We all went back to the Neenach Gas Station & Market for dinner. Plans were made for most of us to hike to Cottonwood Springs the next day, 17.6 miles away.

It was a nice day to relaxing and making new friends

Day 22
Start: Hiker Town – 517.6
End: Cottonwood creek – 535.0
Miles: 17.4
Ascent: 708 ft| Descent: 950 ft

Start time: 6:33 am
End time: 2:43 pm

Our longest day yet with the much anticipated aqueduct walk. We had our earliest start of 6:33 am. There are advantages to starting that early as we both saw the sunrise and moon set at the same time. Very pretty.

The hike was not that exciting. 99% of the trail is basically a road walk next to either the California aqueduct or the Los Angeles aqueduct. We both had seen lots of video and pictures of people hiking the aqueduct and it was amazing to actually be there now. But that feeling wore off quickly after a few miles of the road walk. Mike reported that he fell asleep while hiking.

We did really well in the morning as we did over 11 miles by noon. We took a lunch break under what Jeff deemed was the perfect Joshua tree.

After lunch the afternoon seemed to drag on. The wind had stopped blowing and the sun was starting to heat things up. We finally made it to Cottonwood creek at 2:30 pm. The creek was flowing fast and the cold water felt really good on our sore feet. Our feet took a beating today.

Jeff wanted to go another 2.6 miles to make it a 20 mile day but Ellen vetoed that idea. The thought of carrying a water uphill to a dry camp with feet that were aching did not appeal to her.

We decided to stay and eventually Old Goat, All In, and Ryan showed up. We all soaked our feet and had dinner together by the creek along with 5% and Jojolynn, 2 south-bounders that were also camped there.

Day 23

Start: Cottonwood Creek – 535.0
End: Top of climb – 549.6
Miles: 14.6
Ascent: 4123 ft| Descent: 1016 ft

Start time: 7:33 am
End time: 4:54 pm

Another long day. Not as much for distance but for time on the trail. The entire day we spent climbing. The first part of the day was spent walking through the wind farm. It was pretty cool to be up close to those big wind mills.

Then the trail did some crazy stuff. We thought we would be going directly into the mountains. However, the trail wound around the dry, motor cycle tracked hills for miles. We thought we had seen the last of the windmills, but the trail took us right back towards them. We could have saved about 6 miles if the trail took a direct route. We guess that is just part of the adventure.

We had lunch at a very tiny creek where Jeff soaked his feet.

We were ready to “camel-up” (carry as much water as possible) for the hike to the top and beyond at the last flowing creek, until a south bound hiker told us that there was a water cache at the top with 10 gallons of water. We dumped 2 liters of our water and set off on this long 3.9 mile climb. When we got to the water cache we found that there was only about one gallon of water. We only took 2 liters and messaged our friends who were behind us to camel-up at the creek.

We finally made it to camp close to 5 pm. The rest of our “tramily” (trail family) showed up a little later. We all had dinner together at our place – by our tent. We made tentative plans to stay at the same hotel in town.

Day 24

Start: Top of climb – 549.6
End: willow Springs Road- Tehachapi – 558.4
Miles: 8.8
Ascent: 500 ft| Descent: 2701 ft

Start time: 7:23 am
End time: 11:02am

We made a last minute decision last night to only go 8.8 miles to the Willow Springs road and then get a ride into Tehachapi. “All In” needed to mail a package before the post office closed. We decided to go into town with All In and Ryan. This way we would have most do the day in town and then could leave the next day in the morning. Avoiding taking another zero.

The hike down went really fast as all of us had town food on our minds. We did the 8.8 miles in just under 3.5 hours including many short stops.

The trail also made its way through more wind farms. The hills beneath the wind mills were purple from the millions of tiny purple flowers.

We had been warned by SOBOs that the trail was totally washed out at mile 555.5. Sure enough, the trail was gone and what was left was a ravine. Previous hikers had made a path around the ravine but we decided just to got down and back up the ravine. It really wasn’t as bad as everyone made it seem. Plus it was something different.

We got to the road around 11 am and started looking for a ride into town. A pickup pulled up across the road and waved us over. Bill and Virginia were putting up posters advertising their restaurant, Kelcy’s Restaurant, with free beverages for PCT hikers. They were very generous and drove us to the post office and patiently waited as “All In” was mailing his package. We decided to eat at Kelcy’s since Bill and Virginia were so nice.

After a monster burger and fries we headed over to our hotel and dropped our backpacks. Check in wasn’t until 3 pm and it was only 1:45 pm. We decided to walk over to the Walmart and do our resupply. While at Walmart, Mike P asked if we were hikers and explained he was a trail angel. He asked if we needed a ride tomorrow and of course we said yes.

Once we checked in it was time to get cleaned up, put our food forget and the big time: laundry! The hotel had a laundromat and Ellen got everyone’s laundry done. Only $5! Not bad.

Our little tramily went to dinner at TKs pizza and beer. Good food and very busy. We spent dinner looking at the various PCT Facebook pages and the maps trying to determine the water situation for the end t couple of days. Conclusion: we need to carry lots of water for 2 days as there is very little water for 24 miles. Oh well, training with heavy packs for the Sierras.

And yes, we are still waiting for our trail names.

Here is the next video!