Aaaah, Kennedy Meadows. What a place. It's so remote that the mail never arrives, the porta-potties are never emptied, and the water and power are only on until 5. And yet, everyone is thrilled to be here. You know why? Because the owners are kind, the grill is delicious, the beer is cold, and being here means that WE FINISHED THE DESERT! Longtime blog fans will recall that in 2014, I said I loved Kennedy Meadows so much, I'd take my honeymoon here. Well, now it's 2016 and that's essentially what Justin and I are doing. It's everything we dreamed of: I can't recommend enough this dusty general store in the middle of nowhere.
A slice of heaven
We just wrapped up a pretty challenging 135 mile section from Tehachapi (pronounced "Tay-hatch-uh-pee") to here. We got quite a late start out of Tehachapi as we were nursing my blister and wanted to give it as much time as possible to dry out before shoving it in a shoe. Side note: Justin is an incredible blister doctor and should consider a second career. Thanks to the glory of Kern County Transit, we took a $1 bus ride directly to the trailhead. We'd planned to do 20 miles that day, but turns out we we're starting at ... 5 pm. We ended up getting in a very windy 9 miles instead. We were now in an 11 mile deficit for the section, and as previously discussed on this very blog, it's way easier to get behind on miles than it is to make them up. Rather than doing 20-miles per day to Kennedy Meadows, now we're looking at 22+ miles per day (can't just take an extra day because we don't have enough food). The impact of just a few extra miles per day is tremendous - on our feet, on our psyches, on how much sleep we can get.
More windmills.
Tent explosion...somehow that will all fit in our packs
Justin in front
Epic picnic table in the middle of nowhere
J Trees!
We remembered this section as being brutal from 2014, but fortunately the weather gods smiled on us - the temperature was reasonable (80s for the most part), and the way our miles worked, many of the climbs ended up being at the end of the day, when it was mercifully cooler. And holy cow, it was beautiful. The El Niño year resulted in just absolutely stunning wildflowers. It felt like the hillsides were carpeted in purple. We made a new rule: 10-minutes per day of just sitting on a rock and taking it all in. Otherwise, it's too easy to get sucked into the miles. We call it "Hang of the Day," abbreviated "Hot-D."
Wildflowers like a carpet
We had some highs and lows with campsites in this section... We camped on a terrible slant one night, as it was getting dark and that was the most reasonable spot we could find (thanks, Justin, for bearing the brunt of that one). We also camped directly next two dirt roads on two different nights (crossed our fingers for no early traffic). But we also camped in the middle of a Joshua Tree grove one night and in an open meadow under the Milky Way another night.
Our cozy home
Thanks for our favorite nuts, Linds!
While many folks were trying to take it real slow, to give the snow further north as much time as possible to melt, we actually sped through this section pretty quickly, as we were on a schedule to meet our friend Tim. So we pushed ahead of a lot of our friends...and made new ones! We'd like to include here a plug for our friend Bivvy, who is a cartoonist and just published his first book, "How to Survive in the North." It's available on Amazon and Bivvy is checking the reviews from town, so you could make his day by checking it out.
We also hiked with Buff for a few days, who is a true legend. Buff completed the Triple Crown (Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail) twenty years ago. The year she completed the CDT, she was one of 6 hikers and the only woman. She lives in LA and still loves long-distance hiking, so just takes off as much time as she can to hit the trail. She was just doing the Tehachapi to Walker Pass section this year, and we loved hiking with her for a few days.
As this section went on, the land became increasingly Sierra-like - rockier mountains, big climbs (one day, we did 5K feet of vertical), and, well, I guess that's it. Mostly a lot of climbs. We listened to the second half of the Serial podcast together (we'd saved it for exactly this moment - desert climbs!), pressing play at the same time on our phones and gasping, laughing, and crying together as we walked. As with Season 1, my take-away is: it's complicated. And while the mountains got bigger, it was still pretty desert-like too. We saw two rattlesnakes in two days (bringing our total up to three). One of them darted under a bush and then did a U-turn and started coming back for us. Eventually he stopped and just looked at us for a while. I can imagine him going back to his blog that night, writing "I saw two more humans today. This time, one had a huge beard and the other's shirt was wildly dirty." Another night, we saw what must have been north of thirty bunnies. We hiked in Joshua Trees, went 20+ mile stretches without water, and enjoyed little spits of shade whenever we could.
Little rain shower!
2nd of two rattlesnakes, a very safe distance
Made it a fourth of the way to Canada!
Thanks for alerting us to the side trail with water, fellow hikers!
One of many, many desert bunnies
And then....on a very special morning... we walked in to Kennedy Meadows. A few dozen hikers were sitting on the front porch, enjoying breakfast, playing cards, and chatting. But as we walked up, everyone stopped and cheered wildly for us. Because we had MADE IT through the desert! Over the next day and a half, as we became the hikers sitting on the porch, enjoying delicious food and playing cards, we cheered loudly for each additional hiker that rolled in. We did it!
Desert hikin'
A KM still life
Justin looking for our boxes at KM
Goodbye KM, now on to the Sierra!
A slice of heaven
We just wrapped up a pretty challenging 135 mile section from Tehachapi (pronounced "Tay-hatch-uh-pee") to here. We got quite a late start out of Tehachapi as we were nursing my blister and wanted to give it as much time as possible to dry out before shoving it in a shoe. Side note: Justin is an incredible blister doctor and should consider a second career. Thanks to the glory of Kern County Transit, we took a $1 bus ride directly to the trailhead. We'd planned to do 20 miles that day, but turns out we we're starting at ... 5 pm. We ended up getting in a very windy 9 miles instead. We were now in an 11 mile deficit for the section, and as previously discussed on this very blog, it's way easier to get behind on miles than it is to make them up. Rather than doing 20-miles per day to Kennedy Meadows, now we're looking at 22+ miles per day (can't just take an extra day because we don't have enough food). The impact of just a few extra miles per day is tremendous - on our feet, on our psyches, on how much sleep we can get.
More windmills.
Tent explosion...somehow that will all fit in our packs
Justin in front
Epic picnic table in the middle of nowhere
J Trees!
We remembered this section as being brutal from 2014, but fortunately the weather gods smiled on us - the temperature was reasonable (80s for the most part), and the way our miles worked, many of the climbs ended up being at the end of the day, when it was mercifully cooler. And holy cow, it was beautiful. The El Niño year resulted in just absolutely stunning wildflowers. It felt like the hillsides were carpeted in purple. We made a new rule: 10-minutes per day of just sitting on a rock and taking it all in. Otherwise, it's too easy to get sucked into the miles. We call it "Hang of the Day," abbreviated "Hot-D."
Wildflowers like a carpet
We had some highs and lows with campsites in this section... We camped on a terrible slant one night, as it was getting dark and that was the most reasonable spot we could find (thanks, Justin, for bearing the brunt of that one). We also camped directly next two dirt roads on two different nights (crossed our fingers for no early traffic). But we also camped in the middle of a Joshua Tree grove one night and in an open meadow under the Milky Way another night.
Our cozy home
Thanks for our favorite nuts, Linds!
While many folks were trying to take it real slow, to give the snow further north as much time as possible to melt, we actually sped through this section pretty quickly, as we were on a schedule to meet our friend Tim. So we pushed ahead of a lot of our friends...and made new ones! We'd like to include here a plug for our friend Bivvy, who is a cartoonist and just published his first book, "How to Survive in the North." It's available on Amazon and Bivvy is checking the reviews from town, so you could make his day by checking it out.
We also hiked with Buff for a few days, who is a true legend. Buff completed the Triple Crown (Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail) twenty years ago. The year she completed the CDT, she was one of 6 hikers and the only woman. She lives in LA and still loves long-distance hiking, so just takes off as much time as she can to hit the trail. She was just doing the Tehachapi to Walker Pass section this year, and we loved hiking with her for a few days.
As this section went on, the land became increasingly Sierra-like - rockier mountains, big climbs (one day, we did 5K feet of vertical), and, well, I guess that's it. Mostly a lot of climbs. We listened to the second half of the Serial podcast together (we'd saved it for exactly this moment - desert climbs!), pressing play at the same time on our phones and gasping, laughing, and crying together as we walked. As with Season 1, my take-away is: it's complicated. And while the mountains got bigger, it was still pretty desert-like too. We saw two rattlesnakes in two days (bringing our total up to three). One of them darted under a bush and then did a U-turn and started coming back for us. Eventually he stopped and just looked at us for a while. I can imagine him going back to his blog that night, writing "I saw two more humans today. This time, one had a huge beard and the other's shirt was wildly dirty." Another night, we saw what must have been north of thirty bunnies. We hiked in Joshua Trees, went 20+ mile stretches without water, and enjoyed little spits of shade whenever we could.
Little rain shower!
2nd of two rattlesnakes, a very safe distance
Made it a fourth of the way to Canada!
Thanks for alerting us to the side trail with water, fellow hikers!
One of many, many desert bunnies
And then....on a very special morning... we walked in to Kennedy Meadows. A few dozen hikers were sitting on the front porch, enjoying breakfast, playing cards, and chatting. But as we walked up, everyone stopped and cheered wildly for us. Because we had MADE IT through the desert! Over the next day and a half, as we became the hikers sitting on the porch, enjoying delicious food and playing cards, we cheered loudly for each additional hiker that rolled in. We did it!
Desert hikin'
A KM still life
Justin looking for our boxes at KM
Goodbye KM, now on to the Sierra!
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