Week 13: South Kennedy Meadows to Tehachapi to Agua Dolce

Enjoying the simple luxuries of gas station junk food at 1 in the morning - long story...

After spending a day in Lone Pine running errands, Sabine ended up getting rather sick so we extended our stay another day so she could rest up. Me and Vinny decided to take a day hike up Mount Whitney and made it to Trail Camp, a nice 12 mile trip with a solid climb.

Lone Pine was an awesome, hiker-friendly town and we had a blast enjoying all the Western film memorabilia.

When we got back on trail, we met up with Dan at Kennedy Meadows and started hiking that afternoon, hitting the trail at 1:30. We still had to do about 19 miles to get to the next water source, so we ended up hiking in the dark. The moon was full, but hovering right above the horizon and completely red.

We did 32 miles the next day - and whoever said the desert was flat was definitely lying. This was a hard day, with a long water carry. We had a hard time finding the spring at the end of the day in the dark, and then had to slog our way up to the campsites at Walker Pass. We were all pretty beat down when we finally got to bed.

One woman's "bag of random candy" is another hikers "trail mix". This got us over one of the big hills today...

In the morning, Dan decided he needed to take a day off in town and after much debating he decided to try and hitch into Lake Isabella. Vinny, Sabine and I, more well rested from our time in Lone Pine decided to hike on, but with a late start and dampened spirits from this morning, we only got to do a few more miles after the water cache for a mileage day in the low 20s. We were trying to break our cycle of getting into camp past dark and losing out on the morning hours, so we set up camp near some Joshua trees before 7pm.

Water caches like this are much appreciated in the desert. This cache made for a nice rest in the shade before pushing on to camp.

With a full nights rest we easily woke up at 5:30 and started hiking with the sun. This section of the desert was beautiful and we were lucky to have a stretch of cooler temperatures during the day to make our water carries less strenuous and stressful. We were able to crank out 28 miles before dark, and finally reset our sleep schedule.

The next day, we had about 32 more miles to do until Tehachapi. Our plan was to do about 29 miles, camping 3 miles out from town and hitting Tehachapi in the morning. However, an attempt to shortcut 2 miles of trail through a network of dirt roads servicing the wind turbines that have been spinning above us for the last several miles ended very quickly when we were promptly shuttled off the private property by some of the engineers at the site. Energized by the relief that we were not taken to wind turbine jail for trespassing, and the fact that we were dropped back off at the trail about 2 miles further, we decided to make the push for Tehachapi that night. Radio was more than ready for a hotel night and said it was his treat if we could get there in time - that definitely spurred me and Sabine along.

Looking down into the promised land aka Tehachapi.

Two-pronged antelope horn found on the trail.

When we got to the highway, Sabine called a few trail angels and Mike and Patty kindly came and picked us up from the trailhead. They took us to the Burger Joint, where we devoured some old fashioned diner hamburgers and milkshakes and enjoyed their company.

After another gas station run for midnight munchies (and by midnight I mean hiker midnight, approximately 8pm) we settled into our home sweet home at the Best Western.

We'd been looking forward to our zero in Tehachapi since before the Sierras, since the town has a huge variety of fast food options and a real Albertsons grocery store. I had a blast going through every aisle of the store with Sabine, who was thrilled with everything "American" about it - from the cookies decorated for Halloween to the variety of sugary cereals available. After finishing our resupply, and buying WAY too much food, we immediately got a ride offer back to our hotel from Jose, a super friendly local. He even offered to help us run any errands we had, and waited for us while we refilled our supply of Advil at Walgreens. In conversation, it came up that Sabine had never been through a drive-thru before, so we headed to Dunkin Donuts immediately to celebrate this momentous occasion - selfie included.

We got back to the room to enjoy our feast of fresh fruit, goat and Brie cheese, and baguette. When Vinny returned from the movie theater we all headed out to grab some tacos and 32 oz shakes from the Burger Joint again, to complete a proper food coma. No zero day would be complete without an epsom salt foot soak and face mask spa party either!

We arranged another ride with super friendly trail angels Jenn and Mike to get a ride back to the trail head in the morning, after we shipped off our boxes to Warner Springs, our final resupply point on the trail before Campo.

Being back on the trail was hot and hard, especially with our packs weighted down with all of our delicious food (including Brie sandwiches and lemon bars that we packed out). We stumbled upon a very cute little break spot with a trail register and water cache to break up the day.

The next day was the aqueduct day, a very flat almost road walk section of the trail along the Los Angeles Aqueduct. We thought today would be easy and we would fly through it, but it was extremely boring and hard on the joints. When we made it to Hiker Town, we called the WeeVill market and they picked us up from the trail. We had great burgers at their grill and camped in the soft grass outside the store.

The water that came out of this faucet was brown. Thank goodness for filters...

This horse was very playful and loved Vinny! He was so sad when we hiked past his paddock.

The next day, we hiked along an alternate to the PCT comprised of mostly road walks, to avoid an old fire closure on the trail. We got back on trail at Green Valley and then did 17 more miles and camped outside Agua Dolce.

The next day we only had 8 miles into town and we hurried towards Sweetwater Grill for breakfast where I had a short stack of buttermilk pancakes (been dreaming about those for a few days), eggs, bacon and an acai berry smoothie.

After breakfast, Sabine had arranged a trail angel to help us out with showers, laundry and a delicious brunch. Her massage therapist daughter even gave us quick massages - needless to say we were all very tight!

Brunch at the trail angels home in Agua Dolce.

After spending some time at Dawns, we got back to the market, got our resupply and headed back out to the trail where we got about 7 miles done before dark. Our days in the desert are marked distinctly by where the next water can be found, which would be at the KOA in about three miles.

The Vasquez Rocks - where they filmed many movies including Star Trek.

Walking on the trail under the highway leaving Agua Dolce.