PCT 2014, Day 35: The Desperate Thirst Begins

DAY 35

May 29th, Thursday

596.5 to 616ish

Mile 600!

After packing up our tent at Hamp Williams Pass that morning, we returned to the trail and started a steep climb through the open pine woods and past little meadows. We didn’t see any more cows for a while, but their pies were everywhere! Zach and I decided that we needed to put a public service announcement in the PCTA journal that cows needed to be instructed in the Leave No Trace principles, starting with properly disposing of their waste in a hole 6-8 inches deep at least 100 paces from the trail and water sources.

We also saw a beautiful patterned snake— not a rattler, but we gave it a wide berth anyway.

As usual, the trail through the woods eventually kicked us out into the desert again. We got a little reprieve when we took a detour down a dusty road, back into a grove of trees, to one of the few water sources in this area: a piped spring that gushed into a trough next to a meadow. Since a lot of our water sources lately had been trickles, this one was a beautiful sight. There were several hikers gathered around, filtering water, airing out their feet, taking lunch breaks, and chatting.

In this section of trail, where the water sources were few and far between, most hikers recommended “cameling it”— drinking huge amounts while at the source, then carrying as little as possible in the dry stretches in between. This never worked for me. Whenever I drank a liter in one sitting, I had to pee five minutes later, and I felt like all the water was flushed out of my system. There wasn’t a private place near this water source, so I didn’t drink as much as I should have. And so the cycle of dehydration began.

In the meantime, there was plenty of conversation to listen to. Pesky was there, although I didn’t recognize him since he had shaved his silver beard (although he still wore a bright orange shirt). He was talking to a British guy— the same guy who had fixed his backpack with flip-flops at Ziggy and the Bear’s. The British guy was saying that his pack weighed about 60 pounds.

“Yeesh!” Pesky said. “What are you doing, packing out your poop?”

The British guy replied dryly, “Ah yes, I heard that Brits weren’t allowed to shit on American soil, so I’m packing it all out to Canada.”

It was unreasonably funny.

With every bottle full of water, we returned to the sparse, desert-like groves of pine. Our report said the next several sources of water were all caches, and it’s not wise to rely on caches. We decided to get to the smaller cache tonight, see if there was any water, and figure out our plan of attack accordingly.

We hiked for a while through another burned forest. The scraggly, scorched trees were black and white, but the ground was a carpet of feathery gray-blue flowers, interspersed with little yellow blossoms. And then we turned a corner around a mountain, and saw that the landscape ahead was a desert of deserts: wide, sprawling hills with only barren scraps of scrub on them, with mountains in the distance that appeared to be massive piles of sand dumped over craggy rocks. The sky was large and the land was large and it all looked dry and overbearing, a total wasteland.

Zach and I found the cache: a group of about twenty gallons of water, all dry but one, which was about half full. Zach suggested we take some, but I said that no, we should leave it for someone who really needs it. We hiked on, winding along the barren hills. The sun was setting, painting the whole landscape in deep gold.

Unexpectedly, we came across another cache, with a lawn chair. It had one tiny box of orange juice in a cooler of melted ice. We checked the trail register next to it, and gathered from the appreciative remarks from hikers earlier in the day, that the cooler had been full just a couple hours ago. We must be pacing a huge group.

We sat for a while, feeling anxious about water. There were a couple gallons next to the cooler, so we topped off our bottles before moving on. 

In a few minutes, we found a flat spot on a little knoll along the trail, shielded by low bushes. We cleared some prickly sticks away and set up our tent. Zach made chili, because it required half as much water as our other meals— but it was a particularly spicy batch, so we ended up drinking a lot of water with it.

I took stock of our water, and we only had a couple liters. It seemed like a decent amount at the time, but we had about four miles to go tomorrow to reach the next water, and that was via a complicated detour. I felt really anxious. As if in sympathy, my mouth felt dry and my body seemed shriveled and parched, despite having just drunk a cup of water.

We laid down next to each other, and I stared at the sky above, not quite dark. My mouth felt horrible and dry, but I didn’t want to use any of our precious water. I drifted off into a dry, uneasy sleep. In my dreams, I alternated between dying of dehydration, and drowning in a flood. When I woke up in the night, I believed my dream that we had no water left, and so I never quenched my thirst all night long, despite the water bottle sitting right next to my head.

~~~

PCT 2014, Day 34: Hamp Williams

DAY 34

May 28th, Wednesday

Wherever we camped to 596.5

We were tired that day, and walking through a burned area didn’t help— acres upon acres of black manzanita that groped the sky like tangled tendrils. Eventually, though, the trail left the burn area and wound through some meadowland speckled with trees and brush. The sun beat down on us whenever we departed the shade, and we were both sweating like crazy.

Eventually, we delved through forest again. Zach and I decided to aim for at least as far as Hamp Williams Pass. We thought the name was exceptionally funny. Our conversations for the entire day went something like this:

Me: We should name a kid Hamp Williams.

Zach: “Little Hampy.”

Me: It’s such a funny name. Hamp. Not Hank. Hamp! (We both giggle.)

On the trail, you find anything amusing.

We walked through a fairly dense pine forest while the wind grew to a feverish pitch overhead. We were just thankful that the trees provided a windbreak. We also saw several black cows, who would stare at us with dark eyes, then, with a lurch of motion, go crashing through the underbrush to get away from us.

It was still light out when we paused at Hamp Williams Pass, but sunset wasn’t far around the corner, and our topographical maps showed us that the chances of camping in the next six miles look dubious. Once again, it was a tricky situation— should we try to get in more miles, at the risk of walking after dark? We decided not to.

We found a nice flat area covered in pine needles and set up our tent, hoping that we wouldn’t be run over by a herd of cows in the night. We crawled inside, listening to the violent thrashing of the pines overhead, and ate some chocolate that Lisa had given us. It was a good night.

~~~

PCT Weekly Photo: Meandering toward the plain, California

This is part of my PCT Weekly Photo series. To see the other photos in the collection, click here.

PCT 2014, Day 33: A Long Way to Go

See all the windmills in the distance? Evil scary windmills...

DAY 33

May 27th, Tuesday

558.5 to ?

The next morning, we were fed and clean and ready to hit the trail. Loaded up with snacks, we got into Lisa’s car and she drove us to Tehachapi. She dropped us at the grocery store so we could buy some supplies, then took us to the post office. We and some other hikers waited for it to open. There was a huge line inside, since it was the day after Memorial Day.

An older woman saw my hiking gear and swooped in on me, eager to give advice. Without preamble she launched in: “Be sure to change your socks every hour. And when you lace up your boots, first kick your heel against the ground, then lace them as tight as you can.” 

I smiled and nodded, not telling her that the flimsy trail runners on my feet were my trail shoes. She grinned, satisfied that she had helped my trail experience, and left to stand in line.

We got our box and haphazardly packed it up. Lisa drove us down the highway, leaving the forest and mountains behind us, and taking us back into the lower-lying hills. 

She dropped us off where they’d picked us up. We thanked her for all that she’d done for us, she waved goodbye, and just like that, she was gone. We looked around us at the dusty bright sky, the windmills, the desolate landscape. It felt like no time had passed at all, and that our stay with Bill and Lisa was just a dream.

We had now reached roughly the point where Cheryl Strayed began her famous hike. I reflected that I would not want to be here once June hit. It was already too hot!

We still had eight miles to go to reach Highway 58, where there was (hopefully) a cache. We chugged our water with abandon, hoping the water report wouldn’t prove wrong. As we road-walked near the highway, a guy in a truck made a U-turn to ask if we needed a hitch into Tehachapi. Other hikers confirmed what we felt: Tehachapi was one of the friendliest towns on trail!

We also noticed that we were about to reach Section F. “How many sections are there, anyway?” I asked.

“California goes all the way to Section R,” Zach said. “And then it starts over again in Oregon and Washington, and goes from A to L.”

I counted on my fingers how many sections we’d have to go through just to get out of California. “Thirteen,” I said in despair. 

“Some of them are short,” Zach said. He paused. “Some of them are long, though.”

I shook my head. At this point, I couldn’t comprehend that we could possibly walk that far.

At the highway, true to the water report, we found a large cache with gallons of water, a trash bag, and a package of off-brand oreos. We sat there for a while, filling up our bottles. 

The trail followed the edge of the highway for a while, traveling in a sunken ditch on the downside of a sandy hill. Then the trail veered from the highway and wound up a gradual slope toward the nearby hills. Zach and I took a little break by the side of the trail, then stood up to get going again. I glanced down at the low, brushy ground cover near Zach’s feet— and saw a rattle less than a foot away from his next step.

I seized his arm. “What?” Zach asked.

“Rattlesnake,” I whispered. We both leaped back just as a long, thin, striped snake reared out of the brush, coiling into a strike position as his rattling filled the air. We certainly got out of his way quickly! Fortunately he slithered away soon after, and we were able to continue.

We climbed up into these hills (just a few weeks ago, I would have called them mountains), which gave a nice view of the desert. In my journal I note, “Relaxing pine forest. Camping in forest under stars.” But I can’t for the life of me remember anything about the end of this day. That evening, like grains of sand, has slipped through the cracks in my memory.

~~~

PCT 2014, Day 32: A Vacation in Tehachapi

DAY 32

May 26th, Monday, Memorial Day

Zero!

The next morning, we woke up indoors on a comfortable bed, which was really strange. And we didn’t have to walk anywhere, which was even stranger!

Zach and I wandered upstairs to find Lisa cooking us breakfast. Bill was already up and at ‘em, weed-whacking brush in the side yard. Zach and I, both excited and dizzied by the idea of not having to walk today, asked if Lisa needed anything done around the house. She said that if we wanted to, she had some ideas, although she seemed to think it was funny that we wanted to work on our day off. To me, the idea of working— actually working, not walking!— sounded pretty amazing.

Zach got to work mowing their lawn, and I headed out into the hot, sunny day to clean the goat pen. I raked up the old straw while the goats scuttled around me. Every time I put the straw into garbage bags and let it out of my sight for a second, the goats attacked it. I would turn around to see them trying to climb on top of it. Once I turned around to see one determinedly goring the bag with his tiny horns. I shooed them off, but couldn’t help but laugh!

After that we went inside and Lisa made us sandwiches and we nearly ate ourselves sick. Lisa asked what we’d like for dinner. “What have you really missed on trail— something you never get?” 

With little hesitation, Zach said, “Mexican food.” 

Lisa happened to have several signature Mexican dishes, including some homemade tamales she had in the freezer. She decided to whip us up a feast.

We chatted with her while she cooked, then lounged around, played more pool, called people, caught up on my diary, and generally savored the feeling of not walking. I loved sitting inside in the air conditioning, wearing shorts, feeling my clean bare legs against the sofa. The whole day is a dreamy blur of climate control, clean surfaces, country music playing softly in the background, and not being uncomfortable for an entire day. 

That night we had our feast: homemade tamales, chili verde, refried beans and rice. I could barely eat everything on my plate, but it tasted divine. 

Bill was going to leave for work early in the morning, so Zach and I bid him goodnight. He assured us that we could drop by anytime. “And if you run out of water in the desert, just give me a call. As long as you’re anywhere within five hours, I’ll find some way to get water to you!” Some people’s generosity knows no bounds.

After Zach and I bid them both goodnight and shot pool for a while in the basement, I considered taking a shower. But I’d gotten so used to infrequent showers that two in a row just seemed ridiculous. I decided to pass.

If I had known how long it would be till my next shower, I would have spent all night in the tub.

~~~

PCT 2014, Day 31: Unexpected Angels

DAY 31

MAY 25th, Sunday

542 to Tehachapi

We woke up late that day, squandering the lead that the extra miles the previous day had given us. The last hiker besides us was packing up his tent, and he dryly remarked that we had gotten in late last night. I still felt grumpy and didn’t give much of a reply.

Tyler Horse Canyon was still as death, an incredible contrast from the night before. A nice stream burbled by our campsite, winding its way among the rocks and scrub. The trail zigzagged down one side of the canyon, then ran up the other.

We packed up our stuff, trying not to feel completely disheartened as the Appalachian Trail hikers from the previous day practically sauntered by, laughing and talking. We solidified our plan in our heads. Today was Sunday, so we’d pick up our package in Tehachapi bright and early tomorrow morning. The first place to hitch to Tehachapi was only 16 miles away, but we were okay with doing a shorter day today.

A stocky man with a shaved head and a beard, wearing a brown kilt, paused by the stream to get water. He introduced himself as Tracks. “You guys heading to Tehachapi today?”

“Yup.”

“I’m resupplying in Mojave,” Tracks said, referring to a town on the east side of the trail, rather than the west. “It’ll be nice to have the break.”

“We’re going to pick up our package and get out of there as soon as possible.”

Tracks looked at us with a tense smile, and we realized he was about to say something bad. “…Tomorrow’s Memorial Day.”

I almost swore. Biting my tongue, I turned away and stared steely-eyed at the creek, sparkling in the sun. “Dangit,” was all I managed. We would be set back a full day. We could have stayed at the Andersons that night. We didn’t have to push so hard yesterday. I felt tears stinging my eyes. Zach laughed it off, but I could tell he was upset too.

Well, there was no sense in dawdling. We went ahead and packed up, then started a long slog over barren hills, which soon turned into barren hills covered in blackened and burnt trees. However, as ghostly as the gnarled black branches looked, this was the prettiest burn area yet because of what grew on the ground: tiny flowers, purple and yellow. They brought a sort of soft, almost macabre beauty to the dead forest. It reminded me that things will grow again even after a crisis.

We paused for a lunch break, and I noticed that there were lots of large black ants around. I didn’t think a thing about it until I felt a sharp sting on my shin. I jumped up and killed the ant that had crawled under my pant leg. It left behind a large welt.

All too soon, we left the flowers behind and were caught in a wasteland of sandy hills and dead trees. The sun bore down on us, without any trees to cast shade. I felt hot and sick and disheartened. Zach lent me his phone and I listened to Rubber Soul by the Beatles, retreating into a world of music in which my sweating body and wobbly burning legs were a dream. My feet felt like heavy bags of blood on the ends of my legs. I just wanted this section of trail to be over.

Once again, my will to live was revived by some trail magic. Someone had left some lawn chairs next to a case of bottled water and a bag of apples beneath the shade of a dead tree. A sun-browned man with black hair was already there, sipping water. he introduced himself in a Miami accent as “Paja.” Paja had been a boat mechanic for many years, and finally saved up enough money to quit his job and become a nomad, making small money on the side as a caricature artist. Then we noted he was only wearing flip-flops, which led him to an impassioned lecture about how hiking barefoot was a way to let his feet “evolve.” He only wore the flip-flops because the sand was too hot and the rocks too plentiful. He showed us his leather-like feet, boasting that he had never gotten a blister… just this crevasse in the inch-thick callus on the ball of his foot… and the massive split along his toes, and…

I admired him for his ideals, but I was glad for my footwear, blisters and all.

After a while, we said goodbye to Paja and continued through the burn area, wondering if it would ever end. Finally, we left the trees and continued over barren hills as before. We saw windmills close by and I nearly had a heart attack. Ever after, the sight of windmills struck terror into my heart. We did see some beautiful glossy black horses grazing near the windmills, though.

As we walked, a strange conviction came over me. I became convinced that I should ask God for a place to stay in Tehachapi— over Memorial Day. That seemed ridiculously presumptuous. Why should I? After struggling a bit, I prayed, “Dear God, I know this is crazy and sounds selfish, but would you please send us people who will let us stay at their place?” I didn’t tell Zach, because I wondered if this message was from God, or from wishful thinking.

Finally, around 6:00, we hiked into a marshy area where the trees, while still a bit sparse, at least had leaves. The water was slick with oil and cow pollution, and we walked over the board bridge to a little rest area near the road. On a picnic table was a piece of paper that had a list of trail angels in Tehachapi. Again, it was unclear if they were offering rides or places to stay, although one place said he would let hikers camp in his yard. I eagerly looked at the list, thinking this might be the answer to my prayers. “Do you want to write down any of this?” I asked.

“Nah,” Zach said, breezing past it.

I felt suddenly angry at him. I was trying to help! “Where are you going?”

“I think we should go to the road and try to hitch into town. I hear they have a Taco Bell.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll hitch out and camp here tonight.”

“Isn’t it a little late for that?”

He studied me, sensing my tension. “I think it’ll be all right. Do you want to try?”

Submit to your husband. The impression came clearly, clearer in my head than the prayer request before. I inwardly fumed for a second. “Okay, let’s go for it.”

We crossed the deserted highway and stood on the shoulder, waiting for a car. At last, we saw one. It sped up as it passed us, as if it was afraid that we would try to jump on it. After another five minutes, another car zoomed by. 

Impatiently, I asked, “What about that list of trail angels? We could call one of them and ask for a ride.”

“I’d rather not,” Zach said, squinting down the road.

Why not? I was about to snap, but the voice in my head stopped me again. Trust your husband.

I stood awkwardly next to him in the orange evening light, watching him placidly gaze at the road. 

An SUV appeared on the horizon, speeding toward us. We held out our thumbs. I held my breath.

The SUV skidded to a halt next to us, and a middle-aged couple asked, “Where you guys headed?”

I tried to say, “Tehachapi,” but since I didn’t know how to pronounce it (te-HATCH-a-pee), I blurted out, “Teha-choppy… Or, Teha-chappy? Uh…”

They both laughed. “Throw your stuff in the back.”

The next minute, I was sitting next to Zach in the back seat, feeling a bit washed out, but happy that we were at least getting a ride into town for Taco Bell. The couple were named Bill and Lisa. Bill, with a silver head of hair, kindly blue eyes, and many worn smile lines, drove, while Lisa, tan and blonde with sunglasses adorned with rhinestone skulls, asked us about what was going on. They were on their way home from a weekend blues festival. 

She asked us about our plans for the night. After telling her about the Memorial Day problem, Zach said, “So tonight, we were hoping to go to Taco Bell.”

Lisa laughed. “Are you guys spending the night?”

“No, we’re planning to hitch back to the trail. We don’t have much of a budget.”

I saw Lisa and Bill exchange glances, and I saw the unspoken conversation between them. 

“Would’ja like to stay at our place tonight?” Lisa asked.

My hope soared so high it was dizzying.

“It’s a really nice cabin,” Bill said. “We just bought two Nigerian goats— they’re very sweet. And Lisa is a great cook.”

“We promise we’re not serial rapists,” Lisa added.

“Yes please,” we said in an awed whisper.

“We’re not trying to make you uncomfortable,” Lisa said in a no-nonsense sort of way. “Just say the word, and we’ll just drop you off at Taco Bell.”

“No, we’d really love… thank you…”

“Great,” Lisa said. “We’ll stop by Taco Bell first, then.”

We drove into Tehachapi, and Bill and Lisa paid for a few tacos for each of us before we could protest. Then we continued on to their home: a town that was a gated community in the mountains outside of Tehachapi, a forest rather than desert. Bill pointed up to a hill on our left, and we saw a huge cabin with tall windows on top. “That’s our place,” Bill said.

We pulled up in the driveway, and Zach and I looked around in awe. The grounds were beautiful— Lisa kept several gardens and window boxes full of flowers. The cabin was large and smelled of fragrant wood, overhung by pines. It had a large deck that overlooked a valley and the small mountain across the way. Inside, the house had gigantic ceilings and a wall of windows. A small dog ran around our feet, while two others barked at us from outside. 

“You guys can stay here over Memorial Day,” Lisa said. “I could take you to pick up your package on Tuesday.” I was so shocked I couldn’t even respond.

Before we could even process her offer, she marched us downstairs, where there was a huge game room with a pool table, with a bedroom adjacent to it with a queen-sized bed. “This is your room,” she said. It even had its own bathroom/laundry room and door to the outside. “There’s the pool table. There’s the bed. There’s the big screen and remote if you want to watch TV. Laundry has this glitch— here’s how to fix it. Shower— use any shampoo you want. If you want to take a bath, you can scrub the tub with this first.”

Bill called from outside, “Come see the goats!”

Dazed, Zach and I stepped out the door to see a pen on a sloping stretch of ground. Bill was inside it with two Nigerian dwarf goats, which were only as tall as his knees. They obviously adored him: they were dashing back and forth in the pen as he made feints at them. They leaped around on their pen and a bench, randomly stopping to head-butt each other. Bill crouched down, and both goats leaped up onto his back, shoving each other until one of them fell off. Bill’s eyes— his whole self— sparkled with delight as he played with his new pets. Zach told me later, “With some people, you can just tell that they’re good. When I saw him playing with the goats, I knew he was a good guy.”

I stayed outside with the goats and Bill, while Lisa corralled Zach back inside. When I wandered back into “our room,” Zach was sitting on the couch with a massive pile of individual-serving snacks on the coffee table next to him.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Lisa went to the cupboards and began grabbing stuff and giving them to me.”

I laughed. “This is ridiculous!”

Within the hour, we were showered, and with our clothes in the laundry, we wandered upstairs in our raincoats. Lisa sent us out to the back deck for supper, and we sat at the table among the fragrant wood and looked over the wide valley with the road winding through. It felt like such a different world from the wind-ravaged desert we’d just crossed. There was even a chill in the still air. I sipped orange juice and Zach drank a can of Pepsi Throwback, and we snacked on chunks of fruit and slices of cheese and crackers that Lisa had set out as appetizers.

She soon reheated and brought out the main dish: homemade gumbo. I savored every flavorful bite. After so much bland food, anything with spice in it was an incredible adventure for the senses. I also got the feeling, though, that this was a really amazing gumbo, even without the hiker hunger.

Lisa and Bill left us to ourselves that night, and Zach and I played a game of pool. Then we sank down into the memory foam mattress and mulled over their proposition.

“Do you want to stay here?” Zach asked.

I tried to make a show of hesitating, but it didn’t last long. “Yes,” I said. “I really would.”

And we decided to take our first zero.

~~~

PCT 2014, Day 30: Windmills of Doom

DAY 30

May 24th, Saturday

515ish to 542

We woke up early the next day— but not as early as Relish and Toto, who were already packed up and gone. We quickly followed suit, guiltily kicking the dry cow pies back onto our spot to cover our trace. It was still a few miles to the Hikertown Hostel, winding our way out of the mountains, into the “Rohan hills,” as I called him in my head, and down one last slope onto a perfectly flat plain.

The countryside almost reminded me of the Midwest. (Of course, looking back at the pictures, it’s probably because nothing I’d seen up to that point even came close.) The flat land, the green farmland, the roads that seemed to stretch in one direction forever— as we approached one farm, a rooster even crowed. Different from the Midwest: the desolate brown color of everything not actively irrigated, and the range of mountains in the distance.

We stopped just off the trail at Hikertown, a little complex put together by a set designer and rented out to hikers. It’s set up to look like an old west town, with buildings slightly too small, their facades brightly painted. “Hotel.” “Feed Store.” “Post Office.” Dogs, chickens and ducks ran around everywhere.  An employee there picked our box out of a disorganized pile of other boxes, then said we were free to use the hostel common room (a room with a garage door opening) to sort it. 

As we did, a plump middle-aged woman worked on cleaning the kitchen. We chatted with her, and somehow it came up that Zach was looking much skinnier, while I was holding my weight just fine (quite a plus on a long-distance hike!). She tch'ed her tongue. “Isn’t that just like men?” she said. “You know what they say— to men, carbs are protein, but to women, carbs are fat. So you need to feed him more pasta, and you need to stop eating pasta.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond to this comment— I couldn’t tell whether or not she was telling me to lose weight. So I just asked where the bathroom and water spigot were.

Everyone I talked to who actually stayed at Hikertown Hostel were very creeped out by it. Some intended to stay, but left in the middle of the night. It wasn’t anything in particular, they said— they just felt like the people there were kind of resentful of hikers, and didn’t know how to run a business, and were constantly acting like they were doing the hikers a big favor that needed to be paid back. I completely missed the vibe, and Zach picked it up a little, but it was less than an hour before our resupply was complete, and we were back on the trail with heavily-loaded packs.

The trail cut across the deadly flat plain, then fell in line beside the glittering aqueduct. At that point in the trip, I only had a vague sense of what a controversy this watery channel was, and how much many people in California resent LA for its presence. In the meantime, I just knew that the sparkle of it hurt my eyes. I was glad when we crossed it and took to a dusty road, very flat and straight. It was hard to find a place to go to the bathroom— there wasn’t any brush, and you could see other hikers a mile away!

The wind began to pick up as we walked. For the moment, it kept the hot sun bearable. 

We walked on a perfectly flat, dusty trail for 17 miles.

This meant hours and hours and hours of mind-numbing plodding while a stereotypical old-West landscape crawled by. There were no trees, hardly any vegetation at all. The fine powdery dust danced in the air and stung our eyes. We saw a grove of Joshua Trees, and I nearly had a heart attack— those suckers looked way too much like giant poodle dog bushes for my liking!

At first we appeared to be heading for the mountains, but the trail veered to the right, crawling its way around the mountains to stay on the plain. Once in the distance I thought I saw a lake, but when we got closer I saw it was a solar farm, with dense rows of black panels soaking up the blazing star above our heads.

We found a little cache by the trail, a cooler that had some lukewarm green tea. I was glad for the extra liquid, although it didn’t taste very good. We plodded on. About two miles later, we were passed by two young German men who seemed in exceptionally good spirits. “Did you get that amazing trail magic back there?” one of them asked. Apparently there had been an arrow drawn in the dust that pointed hikers to a man’s residence around the corner, where he’d set up a tiki bar and was grilling burgers. But of course you can’t go four miles out of your way for a burger when you’re just trying to get through this miserable stretch of trail. I felt gloomy and fed up, and that increased as the day went on.

At last, we got to a bridge that had the next water cache, courtesy of Hikertown: a massive multi-gallon tank next to a dry river gully. By this time, the wind was downright intense, and Zach and I were sad to find that the gully was no protection unless you were right up against the pylons of the bridge— and these spots were already taken by other hikers.

Zach and I attempted to cook food. It would have been literally impossible with our homemade stove, but with our new stove it was barely possible. We set up our backpacks as a wind shield as he labored over a pot of chili.

Nearby, seemingly unfazed by the wind, was a group of middle-aged people who’d hiked the Appalachian Trail together (not the complainers that we’d met earlier). They were talking and laughing. One of the guys had a hiccuping “Hee hee HEE!” kind of laugh that grated on my nerves. The wind began to lash harder.

The chili was finished, and Zach spooned it into our bowls. We began to eat— or rather, try to eat. The wind was gusting so strongly that it blew the chili right off our spoons! In ten minutes, we and the surrounding ground were covered in a gory splatter of beans and sauce. My mood worsened even more.

People around us were trying to find spaces out of the wind to set up camp, but it was useless. Zach and I consulted the map and decided that we’d try to press on another seven miles to a campsite among the hills in the distance, where we hoped we’d find respite from the wind. The sun was dipping toward the horizon, but if we walked fast, it wouldn’t be a problem. We hoisted our packs and set out across the bridge and through a grove of Joshua trees toward the ever-nearing wind farm.

Soon we came to a barbed wire fence that surrounded a massive wind farm. Huge, slender turbines tossed over and over above our heads, giving the illusion that they were massive fans causing all this wind. Struggling a little against the wind, and trying to keep our hat cords from lashing our cheeks and necks to death, we followed the trail as it skirted the barbed wire. Eventually, we came to a narrow opening in the fence, with a nearby sign:

DANGER

HIGH VOLTAGE

UNDERGROUND CABLE

ELECTROCUTION HAZARD

PCT ACCESS OPEN

Despite my foul mood, I had to laugh. We crossed the gate and followed the narrow track through the dead plain as the wind rose to a howling, rainless gale around us. The setting sun cast the windmill shadows as huge monstrous shapes, wheeling around us as we struggled onward. The sandy ground scattered around us. And a tiny grain of sand, something that seemed so insignificant, flew into my eye.

I blinked, trying to get it to go away. It burrowed in deeper. I began wiping it, feeling like I could almost get it off. It didn’t work. Zach and I huddled in a tiny pocket of mostly-windless area in the lee of a large bush. I began squirting water, trying to irrigate my eye, which was getting raw. The sand felt like a huge rock in my eye, scraping it down. I was exhausted and hot and windblown and grumpy, and I could not take one more thing.

I fell into an all-out breakdown, lying on my back, sobs wracking my body. Zach was in no mood for this and squirted water in my eye and tried to convince me to calm down. It didn’t work. I was at the end of my rope.

After half an hour and a liter of water squirted at different angles, the sand fell out of my eye. I collapsed backward onto the ground, chest heaving. “Zach,” I said through a sob, “if I react like that to a grain of sand in my eye, how am I ever going to have kids?”

Zach laughed mirthlessly. “That’s what I was thinking.”

And then I don’t remember how it happened, but for some strange and inexplicable reason, we decided to leave our tiny haven from the wind and try to make it to the campsite we were originally hoping for. That was a horrible, horrible idea.

The brain plays all sorts of psychological tricks. For instance, when I saw the sun setting, I somehow expected the wind, along with the heat and the blazing brightness, to fade away and die. On the contrary, the wind began blasting stronger than ever. Not in one giant steady power— that would have been easier— but in knock-you-to-the-ground gusts that were probably 70 to 80 miles per hour. 

My memory of the next few hours are strange and sensory: the way the wind wrenched my trekking pole or my legs every time I lifted them from the earth; the sinking of my feet in firm sand; the darkness that raced over us; the blinking red lights on top of the windmills; the trembling of every muscle in my legs; the overpowering weakness; the feeling, as the sun set, that it wasn’t the sun setting— it was me slowly and surely passing out.

All at once, in the dark of the swiftly-encroaching night, the flat plains heaved upward into hills— hills that, after a day of dead flatness, seemed impossibly steep. Zach’s impatience with me turned to concern as I silently stumbled behind him, feeling like my trekking pole was all that was in between me standing and me collapsing in a heap. The wind lashed us mercilessly. Our headlamps cast pathetically faint glows in front of us, revealing a rougher track, and, eventually, steep drop-offs to the left and then the right. We hiked into the mountains as the sky turned into a tapestry of stars above our heads. In a distant, almost trippy sort of way, I marveled at those cold stars, at how beautiful they were.

If Zach hadn’t been there to lead me, I might have just wandered off the path. I felt trapped inside my body, experiencing the exhausting lashes of the wind, yet strangely outside of it, floating ethereally among the stars.

As we turned a corner around a hill, we passed a large utility pole that was tethered with great wires that were strung with lights. Of course, I knew that’s what it was, but in my windblown mind, all I could see were giant bobbing lights, like an alien entity ready to crash on my head. “Those lights are scary,” I yelled to Zach over the howl of the wind.

He turned and gave me a reassuring squeeze on the arm. “Just another mile and a half!”

That last mile and a half seemed like a timeless wasteland, a place where wind was all that was or ever would be. Vaguely I realized that we had crested the ridge, and were now headed downward— down into Tyler Horse Canyon, the place where we hoped to find shelter from the wind.

And then, all at once, we were in the bottom of the canyon, with a pleasant trickling stream— and the wind was still there.

In despair, Zach and I realized we could go no further. We crawled among the tents of other hikers, trying to find an empty spot. At last we found one only a few feet from the other hikers. We tried to be quiet as we were setting up. “Shh,” I told Zachary as he was making noise. “The others are trying to sleep.”

“Well, if they don’t like it, they can go to…” Zach trailed off into a mumble, wrangling the tent out of his backpack. He had finally snapped, too.

I still don’t know how we got the tent set up with the wind howling all around. We had no tent stakes (perfect timing!), so we lashed our tent to our backpacks to keep it from blowing away. We stuffed our un-inflated pads in the tent and didn’t even bother blowing them up at first. We crawled into the tent and collapsed. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as tired in my life as I did at that moment.

We each ate a Clif bar. We half-inflated our pads with much difficulty. Then, with the wind screaming in our ears and slamming our tent into us, we plunged into an exhausted sleep.

~~~