May 9th, 2022 by Jon
Today we woke to a lot of condensation both on and in our tent. It was pretty cold, and we could tell by how stiff our rain fly was that there was ice on it. We grabbed our clothes, shoved them into our sleeping bags, and prayed they would warm up during the extra 15 minutes of dozing we gave ourselves. When the alarm went off again, we sat up, threw on our clothes, and decided it was a “have breakfast in the tent” kinda morning. We packed a few things, waited for our water to boil, and ate warm oatmeal before finally slipping off our sleeping bags. Packing up our tent nearly gave us frostbite on our fingers. We strategically left our tent pieces at the top of our packs so we could pull them out later today to dry them.
We joined Seabiscuit and quickly left camp, looking forward to the warmth that hiking would bring. The sun was up, hitting the hills across from us, but unfortunately, we were still hiking in the shade. Our legs were completely numb even after a half-mile hike. Usually, we try to stretch, but we didn’t want to stop to lose the heat we were gaining, and I think if I tried, everything would have just snapped in half. We spent most of the morning climbing switchbacks through chaparral before we came to a spring that crossed the trail after 4.5 miles. We stopped there, grabbed an extra liter of water, and rested for a while. The sun had just risen above the mountain fully and was bathing the entire hillside we were on in sunlight, and the warmth felt so good.
Afterwards, we climbed the last 20% or so of the mountain we were on, and more pine trees appeared! We had done the steepest part of the climb and now we hiked more gently up higher and higher in a meadow. The views were incredible of the surrounding valleys and desert far below. Eventually, we dropped down out of the meadow and hiked down the other side of the mountain, which was covered in a large burn scar from the Station fire of 2009. There was a mountain road in a canyon that a group of motorcycles zoomed back and forth on at dangerously high speeds. We’ve seen this a few times in California, and I just hope they don’t get hurt.
When we got to the bottom of the hill we had hiked down, we arrived in a parking lot next to the local fire station where you could normally order pizza for delivery, but on Mondays, they don’t open until 3:00. Womp-Womp. We ate our lunches sitting on our pads on the parking lot floor and hung out for a while. All day, there was a pretty stiff, cold wind, and lunchtime was no exception. There was a water spigot there, which was nice, and we filled a couple of liters because we had to dry camp tonight. We had already gone 12 miles for the day. Apparently, a stream was drying up and had some pools left a few days ago, but they might be dry by now, so we couldn’t rely on them. So it would likely be another 13 miles to the next reliable water source.
We left our lunch spot and climbed up a very sandy trail losing a lot of momentum with each step. We weren’t exactly sure how far we wanted to go, but we wanted to get far enough to reach the LA RV Resort by the end of the day tomorrow. They are friendly to hikers and the property used to be an old KOA. We will pick up our next resupply there and get the chance to eat some real food, take a shower, and do some laundry. After switchbacking up the next climb for a while, we ridge walked for a long time along a ledge looking out at the desert. The trail rolled along, mostly flat but with a few small up and downs. We had 6 miles from the lunch spot to a dirt road where supposedly there was a few spots to camp. We were shooting for that for now. I stopped after 3 miles just to take my pack off and get a break and Singsong caught up to me. We talked for a while before Wilco walked by. He hates dry camping, so he will be hiking all the way to the next water source, making a 25-mile day. Ooph. He hiked on, and then we picked up our stuff and followed.
I caught up to Wilco 2 miles later, and we talked about all things nursing (he’s an adult ER nurse) for a while, which was fun. He wanted to do a couple of travel assignments after this to save up some more money, then buy a sailboat and sail around the Caribbean. Sounds awesome. We talked all the way to the dirt road and found Seabiscuit waiting for us. We sat there and took a break before Biscuit said she was headed to a primitive campground 5.5 miles away. We had been pushing pretty hard, and by this point, we had already done about 18 miles. We knew whatever we decided, we would see each other in town tomorrow, but it was about how easy we wanted to make it for ourselves tomorrow. She left minutes before Singsong arrived and after a short break and some discussion, we decided to hike 2 more miles up the last hill before the descent into town.
We found the perfect little single campsite on a small saddle perfectly protected from the wind and had enough service to FaceTime our moms for a little belated Mother’s Day. We’re going to bed hoping it’s a little warmer tonight than last night, and look forward to getting into town tomorrow!
