DAY 39: MOJAVE RAIN

miles: 24

Today began in the freezing misty rain and ended in the dry desert sand.

I don't think I've ever experienced such drastic weather/terrain/climate conditions.

5:00am wake up at Sawmill - it had rained over night! Everything was moist and we packed up quickly. Ben and I were out of camp first and booked it to stay warm. We were pleasantly surprised when we hit the 500 mark. It was 6:45am, and we were standing there, staring at this monumental feat.

500 miles. Wow.

The fog and drizzle were thick so we quickly took a photo of the 500 mile marker and were on our way. The landscape was beautiful in the mist and I felt the wind in my sails. I felt like I could go 10 miles straight this morning. We sort of had to, in order to get to the water cache.. I was dangerously low on water and needed to keep moving.

Ben and I checked the few water sources that were on the water report, they were "guzzlers" which are basically underground tanks of some sort that collect rain water. They are often covered and require you to dip into the water. I looked in one of these water tanks and witnessed a white, decaying lizard and immediately got up and walked on. No thank you, dead lizard water. Nope!

I will wait until we reach a better source.

The mist was beginning to soak my body and my entire pack and I had to repeatedly stop and put items away in their proper dry bags. I had waited too long to get my rain gear on, so I was already properly soaked by the time I did - not good.

Shivering, hiking, miserably wet and cold... what a day so far. Wasn't this supposed to be the hottest section of trail?

We all rendez-vous'd at the water tank down on the road. We'd come 12 or so miles already. Decided to make some lunch, despite the fridgid temps and miserable moods. Lunch was to be a quick affair today, had to keep moving to stay warm. We were officially entering the Mojave Desert at this point and had been planning on triple digit temperatures and sunburns. Not today!

The clouds turned dark black as we moved further down onto the desert floor. Thrilled to be out of the clouds, hoping the weather and temperature would be better, we were disappointed when the real rain started. Being out of the clouds meant being under them, at this point, which means: raining.

We marched on.

The dramatic weather made for a change of scenery and was a spectacular sight, actually. The contrast of the Mojave Desert against the low, seemingly tornado producing, clouds was striking. I took many photos. Angela and I hiked behind the others for a while, stopping often for photo opp's and wardrobe changes. Morale was looking up.

Once down at the road, we debated as to what we should do: stop here and go to Hikertown (a strange "Trail Angel" sort of place right on the trail) and be content with a 20 mile day OR continue on and get some of the Mojave Desert out of the way this evening while the weather was uncharacteristically cold?

We decided to hit up Hikertown (to say we did, for respite from the increasing wind, to take photos, to say we did) AND hike on from there, going as far as our legs would take us that night.

Hikertown.

Ooooookay. Hikertown is a unique place on the trail - it is a faux western-ish facade of a place, a small cluster of rooms, buildings, trailers, chickens, dogs and double-wides. Wind swept through the middle of Hikertown and gusted, blowing up chicken feathers, garbage and sand. I felt like I was on a movie set... perhaps a horror movie? Is that going too far?

Confused, we wandered around until we found someone to help us find our way to the area where we could relax. The hiker lounge - yes. The hiker lounge was located in a large garage. There was a woman in the kitchen portion of the garage, busily making sandwiches, scooping up bowls of ice cream, and shuffling through the refrigerator.

I was a little creeped out, to say the least, but we were happy to have shelter from the wind and collectively decided to make our stay a short one. Then I fell asleep, in the recliner, in a distorted position. I guess I was more exhausted than I had thought.

Ben, Sour Cream, Angela and Starfox all ate gigantic meals and bowls of ice cream. I snacked on my trail food to save money. We wondered if and when Dr. Slosh and Smiles would catch up - we missed them. Back at Sawmill, Dr. Slosh had been limping due to a lower calf pain... we hoped he wasn't hurt enough that they had to get off of the trail....

Hikers were coming and going, disheveled from the long day in the elements. We all gathered together in the garage and quietly rested and ate. Familiar faces, some we hadn't seen in a while, a few new ones. Most of the others would be staying the night here at Hikertown, something I could not imagine doing, but it was slightly tempting only because of the wind. I questioned whether or not it was wise to go out into the Mojave along the aqueduct in these conditions - could we sleep out there? Was there a reason why people DIDN'T sleep out there? If it wasn't too hot, is it insane to assume we could just walk across the entire Mojave Desert tomorrow? All of these things went unanswered.

Most people tend to night hike the Mojave or do something creative in order to get across it. It is a long, flat, windy as hell, dreadfully slow, and USUALLY HOT, section of the trail that is pretty rough for most hikers, most years. It seemed like we were lucky that we got such cool weather and we wanted to take advantage of it by going out as soon as possible, to beat the heat, in the event that it suddenly got hot tomorrow.

Busted (another hiker we have come to know in the past few days), a 36 year old, fun lovin' girl who had ben hiking with Starfox previously, has decided to set out with us.

With much reluctance, we packed up, buckled our belts, and set out on our way.

The trail from here follows the open L.A. aqueduct - which is really neat. The sun was setting behind us and the wind was picking up speed but was not nearly strong enough to be a problem, at this point.

Us walking the aqueduct.

Our camp spot.

A few miles later, the aqueduct becomes covered and the trail follows it, like... on top of it. We walked single file on top of the aqueduct for hours, singing along to the tunes on Angela's speaker. It was a blast. To walk on an aqueduct, during sunset, in the middle of the Mojave Desert, was mighty fine.

After we had come a total of 25 miles for the day, we decided to call it quits. We had found a relatively wind-blocked spot right next to the aqueduct in which to pitch our tents. Ben and I thought it would be a good idea to pitch the tent in the event that sand was an issue in the night (we didn't want sand mouths). There were also lots of pokey bits flying around and I wanted to avoid popping my sleeping mat (my NeoAir). So - we set up the tent, enjoyed one of the craziest sunsets yet, and were loving life. Hell yeah!