June 2, 2016 - No thunderstorm last night but it sure was windy but lucky for me I picked a great spot so I was protected. I tried to wake up at 5am and get an early start but I was pretty tired after yesterday and couldn’t get moving until after 6am.
I finally hit the trail around 7am and had 16 miles to go until town. I had 2 options of getting to town. There would be a road crossing at mile 8 for the day or 16. Both roads would take me to town. Part of me wanted to take the hitch at the first road crossing but since I was just about out of food those extra 8 miles wouldn’t be so bad. Plus I heard a rumor that Coppertone was at that first road crossing and figured his trail magic would be enough to get in that extra 8.
I flew through those first 8 miles, all downhill, I passed a lot of people. A few miles out from the road I started to head into another windmill farm but this one was much bigger, must have over a 1000 windmills.
I get to the road and sure enough Coppertone was there but no ice cream float this time so I settled for a banana and a mini pecan pie. Most people were hitching into town from this road crossings but I figured I would keep going.
I made my way through the windmill farm those next 8 miles, with mostly uphill as it was starting to get warm out. Luckily it was windy so kept things cool. Made good time all the way to the next road crossing.
At highway 58 I have a choice of towns to go to; left to Tehachapi or right to Mojave. Right before I get to the intersection a car pulls up and offers a ride to Tehachapi, so that made up my mind for me.
The guy was a trail angel driving back and forth to help hikers get to town. He dropped me off at the store and said he would take me back to the trail later. I did my resupply then got some fast food at Burger King. After eating about 2000 calories I did a little housekeeping. I had some rips in my gloves so I tried to do a little sewing. I did the best I could, I probably should have had my mom give me a lesson before I left. Just to make sure the thread stayed in place I put a little duct tape on.
Dogbite came back as promised and dropped me off where he picked me up.
The plan was to hike 4.5 miles to the first campsite I came across. Soon after being back on trail I came across all these white boxes. Then I remember reading about there being bee boxes in this location. I took a few pictures and didn’t see many bees until I looked up and they were everywhere so I gotta move on.
I knew it was all uphill to camp but it was also very windy, I see why they built all those windmills in that location. I get to camp and it’s just too windy so I check my map and the next campsite is 2 miles away. I’m starting to run out of daylight so I’m praying the next site is protected from the wind.
I get to the campsite just after 7pm as the sun is close to setting over the mountains. The campsite was surrounding by lots of trees so I figured it would work even though it was still windy. I really didn’t want to be moving on with it starting to get dark soon.
I set up camp as quick as possible then watched the sunset while eating dinner. I never get tired of these PCT sunsets, can’t wait to see them in the Sierras.
