From The Desert Floor Through The San Gorgonio Wilderness

-

 I woke up to a layer of dust on everything, my sleeping bag, my face, my eyelids, the tent floor. Outside, the sun was just coming up over the mountain ridge and I opened the tent to see the beautiful sunrise. 

Sunrise


The wind had finally eased and I got to make breakfast and pack up without problems. Shortly after I started hiking it picked back up and most of the day was a struggle against the wind.


The Calm Before The Wind Picked Up

Dust In The Wind

To The Desert Floor


I finally reached the desert floor and with it a water spigot provided by the local water authority, the first water source in the last 20 miles. I had carried all water for the previous day and that morning with me.


Cheers!


The desert floor turned out to be sort of a wasteland. I had to cross busy railroad tracks with long rattling freight trains as well as Interstate 10 through underpasses.


Container Trains Heading To L.A.


Over me, there were high voltage cables from a nearby wind farm humming in the high wind. A large dust devil danced towards me. It was rough going and I was happy to rest a bit at the underpass, also dubbed I-10 Oasis, as trail angels sometimes leave water, drinks and food.


I-10 “Oasis”

I finally made it to the mountains on the other side. Although the wind kept blowing, the vegetation here kept the sand and dust mainly on the ground.


Up The Next Mountain

Mesa Wind Farm


I crossed a section of the Mesa Wind Farm, went over the next ridge and felt like I entered another world.


Whitewater River Valley


The wide valley of the Whitewater River looked to be light years away from the area I just crossed. I made my way down and put up my tent near the bank of the river. After I had dinner it was 7 pm, the winds finally died down and I was completely exhausted and went into my tent to sleep.


Good Night!


The next day was very pleasant as I hiked with some fellow hikers up  Mission Creek. No shortage of water and the weather was very nice. I needed the respite from the last three days in the storm!


Nice Views All Day


It got colder as I hiked higher into the mountains and by the time the day ended, I was wearing my puffy jacket. The temperatures dropped below freezing that night and I hiked in my puffy and gloves almost all the next day. The views in the morning were gorgeous and Mt San Gorgonio made frequent appearances.


Mt. San Gorgonio

I camped with other hikers in a tree covered valley. The temperatures dipped to 25 F and I woke up to frozen water in my bottle and frozen oatmeal for breakfast.


SoCal In May…


I made coffee, warmed up the oatmeal and mixed in a large chunk of dark chocolate as well as peanut butter, creating sort of a chocolate stew to warm my belly and my heart.



Then I headed into Big Bear City to resupply and celebrate completion of the first 10% of the PCT with a few other hikers.


Joshua Trees Making An Appearance


Comments

  1. SusanMay 21, 2022 at 3:23 PM

    10% of the way! Congratulations! I'm glad you were able to overcome the frozen oatmeal and concoct something warming to your heart and belly. I am not quite sure what the last photo depicts - a stack of donuts surrounded by french fries? A massive burger-onion-ring something? In any case, "Mangia!"

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Finally Made A Bucket List

-
Image
 It actually turned out to be exactly five buckets, 20 gallon each. I hope I'm doing this right... Planning the types and quantity of food was relatively easy as I could draw from my experiences preparing for and completing the Pacific Crest Trail and the Arizona Trail. I estimate the Hayduke to take about two months. Unlike for the much longer PCT, I decided not to do any cooking and dehydrating and will rely on commercially available foods only. The Buckets And The Stuff That Goes Into Them My breakfasts will be based on overnight oats, just like during my previous thru-hikes. I add chia seeds, different kinds of nuts as well as dried cranberries or raisins to create variety. The mix goes into individual ziplock bags that I will also use for overnight soaking. The moistened mix is a favorite for rodents, so the bag goes into my cooking pot during the night and will be firmly secured with a metal lid. I eat directly out of the ziplock bag, eliminating the need for cleaning any dis...
Read more

Hello, Hayduke!

-
Image
 Today I received a long awaited email from a backcountry ranger at Grand Canyon National Park. "Hello Michael, I drew up a permit for you...". That was the moment my next thru-hiking adventure started to feel real. It's been two and a half years since my last long hike, the Arizona Trail. Back then, I had added roughly 100 miles through southern Utah, more out of convenience than anything else. By starting my hike in Bryce Canyon instead of the Arizona border I could just take a bus from Las Vegas instead of scrambling to find transportation to the official terminus. I ended up liking this part of the hike more than most sections of the official trail and started looking into hiking the complete route. Overlooking Grand Gulch in Capitol Reef National Park At first, it sounded too daunting. The Hayduke is an 800–850-mile, mostly off-trail route linking Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks across the Colorado Plateau. All my...
Read more

The Route

-
Image
One of the skills I had to improve on while preparing for the Hayduke was making routes on maps. While the route exists on CalTopo and AllTrails, updates and alternates are missing. Many underlying maps are pretty old and do not reflect developments in recent years or even decades. I found, for example, that a rockslide closed part of the Zion route and I had to look into detour options. I’m sure I will discover more changes as I continue my preparations and also along the hike.  I started looking into my preferred route last year already, but worked out most details in the last few weeks. While the process of working on those maps can be pretty tedious, I enjoy imagining hiking the routes I created. Current State Of My Route With Some Alternates I learned the hard way during the hike in 2023 that marked water sources like springs can be really unreliable. Luckily I found a spreadsheet online that showed known water sources along the route, but the last updates were from 2022. I su...
Read more