I have a phone again. Yay!
Since my Wrightwood post we have climbed Baden Powell. We had actually planned on detouring around that section so we wouldn't have to do all that climbing, but we missed the detour. I'm glad we did it but it was one heck of a climb. Greg said we did 3000 feet in 3 hours. Pretty darn good for a couple mature women!
We also got lost a couple of times in one day. The second time was trying follow an alternate route to protect an endangered frog. I can always find a bright side. We were lost with a very nice British couple we met the night before and ended up camping with them the next two nights.
We spent a couple of days playing dodge the Poodle Dog Bush. Not a game I enjoyed. Especially when it was growing on both sides of the trail.
Then there was our unplanned stay at the Acton KOA! Laundry and showers. Who could ask for more. Trail angel Mary got us to town for shopping and dinner and then back to the KOA. Turns out she's been following our blog and wanted to takes us out to lunch when we got to Agua Dulce. It was a wonderful lunch. Thank you Mary.
We also spent a night at Casa Luna in Green Valley. The Anderson's open their home, actually yard, to hikers. They also fix a taco salad for dinner and coffee and pancakes for breakfast. Caught up with some hikers that we haven't seen for awhile and made some new friends. Terry Anderson drove us back to the trail where we faced a fire detour. This included a 12 mile road walk before we got back on the trail. Another option was a 21 mile road walk to Hikertown near Lancaster. Liz and I opted for this. About two miles out of Lake Hughes someone pulled over to see if we wanted a ride. We weren't even hitching at this point. Linda already had a hiker in the car and I think he knew we were planning on going directly to Hikertown. Found out when she dropped us off that she has also been following our blog.
We stayed at Hikertown until 6pm and then started our trek across the Mojave. The moon was out and we were following the California aqueduct on a dirt road so it was a very pleasant walk and beautiful sunset. We cowboy camped beside the aqueduct. I really wanted to set up my tent, but the ground was too hard. I know snakes don't come out at night, but everyone keeps warning us about the Mojave Green Rattlesnake and then there are the scorpions. Liz had a scorpion crawling next to her sleeping bag right after she crawled in. Needless to say I didn't sleep well.
Yesterday we had our earliest start yet, 5:30am. We hiked until we got to the next water source around 11am and then hung out in the shade until 4pm. The next part of the trail climbed about 1200 feet with no shade. We wanted to get to the top before we quit so that we wouldn't have to face the climb today and so we would have a shorter hike to the road to Tehachipi.
We are now in a Best Western. I picked up the package Greg sent me. I rode the BW's bike to the post office. I've hiked over 550 miles and I thought I wasn't going to make it over the freeway on this bike! We will be zeroing tomorrow. Resting up for more hot, waterless days ahead.
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