To Have and To Hike: Agua Dulce to Tehachapi

Hello from Tehachapi! We are enjoying the fruits of our consultant labors using hotel points to luxuriate in a Fairfield Inn. It's hands down the fanciest place we've stayed since we started our hike. It feels good.

The night before we left Agua Dulce, Stephen and Sofia drove in from LA to hang out with us! It turns out it was a Friday (we had no idea) and we were less than an hour from LA. Stephen rocked up in LA casual - jeans, collared shirt and a sweater. He stood out like a sore thumb from the hiker trash that was Hiker Heaven. One hiker walked by where we were sitting and said "looking sharp." It's funny to think that typically we'd look the same, more prepared for a night at a nice restaurant, not rocking a 4-week beard and a down sweater. When we were driving to dinner at a Mexican joint nearby, we pulled over to the side of the road to pick up Jim who was wandering by himself and corraled him into joining us for margaritas and Mexican feast. It was fantastic to hang out, and great to share this crazy experience.

Two years ago, we started our hike in Agua Dulce. Our hike was surreal, fun and completely different from our prior experience. The biggest change was the weather. Back then it was hovering in the high 90s to 110s during the day, this time it barely broke 70 at its hotest. The other big thing is that our legs are so much stronger than they were then. The first 24 miles from Hiker Heaven to Casa de Luna (another trail angel home) we'd done in two days back then. This time, we cranked it out in a very short day. We started at 9am and were done by 4pm.

It was cold!

During our time in Agua Dulce, we had a margarita-fueled lunch with Thirteen, Adam and Amber. We decided we'd stay until we all had trail names. We only partially succeeded. It turns out that Amber is a bit of a slow riser, so Adam brings her coffee and breakfast every morning (ahem) to help mitigate the bear. Hence her name: Little Bear, or Lil Bear. Adam is named for his favorite trail animal to date: Horny Toad. He hasn't fully embraced it yet. But there's nothing like a little public repetition to help :)

Listening to Lil Bear and Horny Toad, Jenny and I decided to kick off this section with 5 Hour Energy. The last time I had tried the stuff I was sitting in Meyer Library at 4am trying to finish writing about the formation of Mali's government after the 1991 military coup. It turns out that a shot of caffeine got us GOING for the whole day. We spent the beginning of the day swapping stories about the outdoors and living abroad. They met while working as raft guides in Montana. Lil Bear told us all about a terrifying motorcycle accident in China, while I shared the story of our taxi crash in Koundara and Tristan's motorcycle accident in Sierra Leone.

After 14 miles we came across a sign for burgers. Hiking on weekends near cities is the best. A family of three was making burgers for hikers on the side of a small road. The dad had gone for a hike in the Mojave and stumbled on a desperately needed water cache. He decided to drag his family out there to pass it forward.

Ten miles later we arrived at the road to hitch to Casa de Luna. After 20 minutes of kicking it with 5 other hikers, a local packed us into her car like sardines and took us to the famous Hippie Day Care. Terri and Joe Anderson are famous trail angels who put their distinctive inprint on the hikers they care for. Everyone must wear a Hawaiian shirt the whole time they are there. Every evening for hiker season Terri makes taco salad (i.e., nachos), and every morning Joe makes pancakes and coffee. There are futons in the drive way, coolers filled with beer by hikers, a huge white sheet for hikers to sign their names, a rock painting station that helps decorate the property, and
a magical manzanita forest in their backyard with little nooks for hikers to sleep. It's a one of a kind spot. They used to maintain an awesome water cache, "the Oasis," where we had camped in 2014 but they had to take it down because of a complaint.

Casa de Luna

The manzanita forest

Indeed

Yep

Taco salad fixings

Pancakes

Hawaiian shirts!

Where the name Luna comes from

We sat with a group of hikers drinking beer and reading "Bedtime Stories" a collection of romance stories out-loud in a circle. You read until you crack a smile or burst out laughing. For whatever reason, this is a not uncommon hiker game. It turns out a guy sitting across from us, enjoying the craziness and laughing about unemployment after the trail joked that he was networking for a job at McKinsey not having any idea that we actually worked there. After we laughed about that, we kept chatting and it turns out that he was a college debater and we share a few friends from my brief foray into college debate. Go figure.

Kicking it on the couch with Thirteen and Horny Toad while Lil Bear looks on

The next day we walked 27 miles through a section that had been closed in 2014 to get to Hikertown (indescribable place but the bottom line is that they have water and camping). We wanted to make sure we could walk across the Mojave floor early the next morning to take advantage of the colder weather, and we are now on a deadline to get to Horseshoe Meadows in time to meet Breakfast Sandwich. We had memories of Hikertown being a frankly creepy spot (think abandoned movie set combined with a trailer park in the middle of nowhere), so we were thrilled to see more than a dozen hikers there when we rocked up as the sun was setting. We had been hiking aggressively enough that we caught up with Nick/Boy Drogo, Garfield, Pizza Taxi, Skywalker and others. Bob, the proprietor of Hikertown, was a friendly guy, and the experience was decidedly less creepy than we'd remembered.

We made it to 500! Lots of markers

The next two days we walked through interesting bits of infrastructure: first, the LA aqueduct, and then a wind farm. The aqueduct was a harrowing walk for us two years ago, with 110+ degree heat and absolutely no shade. This time around we started walking with warm hats, gloves and wind shirts on. It was cold. What?

Looking down into the Mojave floor

Foothills before the floor

Heading down towards Hikertown

We survived the siphon, a terrifying suction of the open aqueduct down a pipe into a lower section. According to Jenny it's the scariest part of the PCT. It is the stuff of nightmares.

Speaking of nightmares, Jenny's feet took a turn for the worse as we walked along the closed aqueduct (water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink). We'll leave it at that since some of you might be squeamish.

Jenny resting the foot

Me just napping on the aqueduct

Luckily our foot troubles subsided once Terri Anderson drove past us, on the aqueduct, to shoot us with a water gun, then give us cold soda and candy. The woman is incredible and totally gives her heart to hikers.

We slept amongst giant wind turbines right outside a sign warning us about electrocution. We hope by camping on the other side of the sign, we were safe. The white noise was excellent for sleep it turns out.

The turbines

The next day we hiked up into the Tehachapi mountains and out into yet another wind farm. We ran into large groups of hikers at the two water sources, and decided to push into town. Given that we were surrounded by turbines, we shouldn't have been surprised that it was extremely windy.

We waited on the road trying to hitch for a while. After 15 minutes or so, a car stopped. We put our bags in his trunk and immediately realized it's a rental car. This got our spidey sense up... Usually our hitches are with locals who know the trail and have been giving hikers rides for years. We took a look at the guy and decided to risk it. And we're glad about that! The driver, Mark, is a consultant from Colorado who loves to backpack. Basically, our twin! He was even staying in the same hotel. After cleaning up and buying some Epsom Salts for Jenny's feet, we went to a nearby pizza joint and shared some beers with Mark as a thanks for the ride.

This morning we moseyed over to pick up our packages at a motel. We had FIVE!! Four from friends and family, along with our resupply box. THANK YOU Alex, Lindsay & Josh, Bev & Ed, and Mom & Dad for the treats, baked goods, and thoughts! Fortunately the next section is a long one - we'll have plenty of time to make it through the awesome treats you all sent! We also are sharing some with our "hiker family," as good karma like this deserves to be shared. So much deliciousness to carry us through the next section.

The next section is our longest yet, about 140 miles, to Kennedy Meadows. Kennedy Meadows is the end of the desert and start of the Sierra. Hikers are starting to post reports going through the mountain passes. Our takeaway: it's snowy, amazing and challenging. We have ice axes (thank you Barrel Roll!!!), microspikes, and a layer or two coming. The internet and cell situation in Kennedy Meadows is a bit uncertain, so you may next hear from us in Bishop.

A grab bag of pictures:

Between hiker heaven and casa de Luna