Alice and I left the house at 3ish to head back to the trail near Tehachapi. I was driving. Alice doesn’t like canyon roads, so I tried a different route on the 5, down the grapevine, and catching the 58 South of Tehachapi. That turned out to be a bad move. It added an extra 1 hour to our trip and 1.5 hours of Alice complaining. She thought I had some secret agenda (I didn’t).
Finally we got to town and headed out on Willow Springs. From Willow Springs it is an 8 mile hike to the point were the trail crosses the 58. I had hoped to drop some water at the 58 before hitting the trail, but since we were running late that was not happening. So Alice dropped me and 6 gallons of water at the trail head and took off. Figured I’d leave the water for other hikers.
My pack is super heavy. I’ve 5 liters of water and enough food to get me almost 150 miles at what will likely be a 15 mile a day average given the condition of my right leg. This section is notorious for sucking. Very little water, exposed climbs, very windy, lot of crappy sandy trails sucking up each step.
Then I got some major trail magic.
A dude named Legend and Coppertone were setup near the trail serving up spaghetti and smoothies. I was in a hurry to get on the trail, but Legend convinced me to come sit for a few minutes. Glad I did. There was a group of folks there milling around and he offered to slack pack all of us to the 58! Hell ya!!!! I gave him my 43 pound pack, grabbed my bladder, and took off a little after 5.
This 8 mile bit was a bunch of gentle climbs and descents among low hills. The winds here are relentless, hence all the wind turbines. Seems there are all types of the things out here.
The terrain is, well, unremarkable. In my excitement to take Legend up on his offer, I forgot to ask him where he was going to meet us. I think he said something like 9:00. Hmmm. I gave that a couple minutes of worry and forgot about it. I was blasting through the hills with my ~3 pound “pack” and loving it. Some rock artist seemed to agree.
Crossed a bridge on the way down. It was surrounded by white buckets. Trail Magic? Nope, just full of sand. I can tell hikers have opened each one checking. That is just cruel.
At the bottom of the valley, the trail follows a paved road to an overpass. It was getting dark and had not seen a soul yet. Turns out Legend was setup on the North side. The whole crew was there chit-chatting and loading their stuff. Got a picture of Legend before I took off.
I was feeling pretty good, so it was time to do some serious climbing. Put on the headlamp and followed the 58 for a mile until the switch backs start up. The wind was crazy. Started as 20 mph gusts and kept getting stronger. I hooked up with a couple of gals and we hiked for a few miles together. One of them decided to setup a tent halfway up….good luck with that.
The cool thing was a nearly full Moon rose and soon headlamps were not even needed. Passed this dude cowboy camping in the wind tunnel. Looked miserable. Found out later that his inflatable pillow flew off into the emptiness. The wind slacked off a bit near the top of the canyon and I found some good protected spots around mile 570. Setup at 11ish and had a good night’s sleep. 12 miles for a half day, that seems respectable.