May 15th, 2022 by Jon
Today we woke up around 7:00 with the goal of doing a lot of lounging in the shade to stay out of the heat. Tonight we hike the aqueduct! The L.A. aqueduct had an interesting and complicated history. If you haven’t ever heard of it, I encourage you to go check it out. That said, the PCT walks right over it for about 18 miles. It can be extremely hot, and most hikers choose to get up very early or hike it in the evening.
After packing our things this morning, we moved them all over to Stealth’s patio and claimed our spots for the day. We hung out for a few hours before heading to the store down the road to grab some food, both to eat there for breakfast, and to get more snacks to take back with us to Hikertown and eat that day. Singsong and I both had excellent breakfast burritos!
We stayed there for a few hours for the Wi-Fi and shade before heading back. It was a very slow rest of the afternoon with snacks, hydration, and lots of talking. We had a good time, and then it was finally time to get ready. We had 17 miles to the next water, which came in the form of a cache. It’s not always the best idea to rely on them because it’s hard to know when they last got stocked, or if a bunch of hikers go through and take all the water there, you’re screwed. The next reliable water was in 24 miles. We took 4 liters to cover ourselves, the trail would be flat and we would be hiking when it’s cool so the spectra weight shouldn’t feel as bad.
At 5:45, our group, plus the Belgian couple, left to go hiking! Some hikers had gotten neon body paint, so we gave ourselves some face stripes before heading out. We walked down a few roads, heading for the other side of the desert and the mountains beyond. Eventually, we came to the open part of the aqueduct where it flows as an open body of water about 30 feet wide. We walked along it for a while before crossing a bridge and staring down a long, huge pipe that ran straight for miles towards the mountains we were headed towards. This was the real aqueduct walk. We followed it for 4-5 miles before following a road that was either an access road to the aqueduct, or had pipes underneath it. Who knows which one?
Tonight there was a lunar eclipse, so around 8:30 we stopped to watch the moon go completely dark. As light returned, the moon turned blood red, and it was really cool to watch it as we hiked. Over the next few hours, it would transition back to being the full moon that it was supposed to be. While in the blood moon phase, we actually had to use our headlamps to see because it wasn’t bright enough otherwise. When it did finally turn, we could walk without the headlamps because it was bright enough with just the moonlight.
The rest of the hiking was rather monotonous. We hiked it as a group so we could goof off and joke around, since we couldn’t see much besides the same desert plants we’d seen for 17 miles. We listened to some music, taking turns to play a song, and talked about life. It was pretty easy to walk 3 miles an hour, so we made pretty good time. When we were about 2 miles from the first water source, we climbed a small hill and watched all the windmills turn in slow circles. The wind was pretty gusty, so I guess it makes sense to have the wind farm here. We walked one last mile down a flat paved road before finally arriving at a very well-stocked water cache and a small bridge. I’m sure it would have been a welcome shady spot if we had hiked during the day.
It was 11:45 pm at this point, and we had hiked 17 miles in 6 hours. We pitched our tents quickly and dove into them, very tired, but happy. We plan to sleep in tomorrow to give us some more recovery time.
