At 5:30 am, I woke Bill up so we could both take our “waterbug medicine,”  and I was very happy to find that I was feeling much better already.   The nausea was minimal, and I felt stronger.   I actually managed to eat breakfast–very slowly, and in little nibbles, but I could eat again!  Hooray!

Bill and I spent the morning resting, drinking water, nibbling at food, and reading.  The Rosanders have an awesome collection of hiking books,  thanks to Christy’s enthusiasm for backpacking.   And the weather report contained an advisory for rapidly rising rivers–the snow is melting fast!   Very good news!    On the sobering side, though, reports from the PCT did not sound encouraging.   Forester Pass “needs mountaineering skills and ice axe to traverse” right now.    We talked about what to do.   Neither of us are in any kind of shape right now to tackle that, much less the climb from Tehachapi Pass up into the Sierras.   It is beginning to look like we may need to go home for a little bit to get well again, then come back.   We are definitely getting better, but still nowhere near as strong as we were when we first got here to Tehachapi.

This morning, there were TWO of us feeling nauseous, but me worse than Bill.   I managed to eat some banana for breakfast by just nibbling on it little by little.   Bill and I had planned to go to church, but that was now out of the question.   We figured we must have giardia or something similar,  and were trying to figure out how we could organize getting to a doctor for a prescription,  when Christy volunteered to take us to the place she goes, an urgent care center in Bakersfield.

This was WAY over and above for her to do this–not only is it a long way to Bakersfield, but she was in the middle of getting her college age son off to his summer job as program director at a Christian camp in Big Bear.  We were enormously grateful.   Bill was a bit “brighter” because he’d been taking the medicine already, but I was pretty wasted.   So the Bakersfield expedition was very hard.   I had trouble even with standing up for very long at a time!   But we finally had our turn with the doctor,  got the prescription, and then when we got back to Tehachapi,  I went straight to bed.   It seemed like only 5 minutes had gone by when Bill woke me up at 10 pm to take more medicine.    Hope it works.   I want to get back to the PCT!     Our original plan was for Tuesday, but it’s looking iffy.

It was a beautiful warm morning, and the weather report was VERY encouraging–at least a week of steadlily growing warmer, plus plenty of sun.   I had a delicious big breakfast–the Rosander’s hospitality is awesome!   But Bill is still sick.  He did not get up for a long time, and we had a very worried discussion about what might be wrong.   It’s the same as 2005–no fever, no sore throat, no “runny tummy”–just total loss of appetite,  nausea and tiredness.    The conclusion was that maybe he is just very, very tired, and needs to rest?

I spent the morning doing the usual “town chores” of airing and cleaning gear, doing laundry, writing, etc.    I also got to admire Christy Rosander’s Granite Gear backpack as she got ready to head out on a training hike.   Every other day, with full packweight, she climbs Tehachapi Mtn.   She’s planning to leave in a couple of weeks to hike the PCT from here to Donner Lake.   She is one amazing backpacker lady!

Dinner was provided by Dan Rosander–homemade pizza.   Bill managed to nibble a tiny bit,  but that was all.   We are all beginning to think maybe he’s got giardia or something similar.   Christy said she had giardia last year, and her symptoms were very much like Bill’s.   She showed us her prescription, and there were a few pills left.   Unknown to me,  Bill took one!   (A good plan, as it turned out).

I felt fine when I went to bed, but during the night, I woke up feeling very ill–nausea and weakness, yikes!   It was a miserable time.

Walk to Lórien: Yuledays camped near stream

Good thing we rigged the tarp last night–it RAINED! It wasn’t a deluge, but I am so glad we weren’t out in it, “rigging by headlamp.”  The wind was pretty bad when we got up a bit after 5 am to begin the 1,600 foot climb out of the canyon and up to the summit.   It was 38 degrees, the wind  felt like ice, and there was fresh snow on all the mountaintops around us.  The PCT follows many LONG switchbacks up the sandy mountainsides, and hooray!  Somebody had really fixed up the trail itself and put up lots of PCT signposts to guide us through the maze of motocross trails.  We were never “lost” this time, as we were in 2005.

But sadly, there had been a forest fire, so instead of green trees and grass high in the Tehachapis, we were walking through blackened, skeleton forests.  One tree had a worried note on it, titled, “Have You Seen Billy Goat?”  It was dated in April.   I added a note saying, “He’s fine–we saw him in Big Bear in May”.

Eventually the PCT took us to the “windfarm side of the hill.”  I knew we were in for it, windwise, but what we didn’t know was that today there was a wind ADVISORY for up to gale force.   No kidding!  We spent the afternoon battling through winds that were strong enough to almost knock me over.  All I could do was stop, brace both legs and trek poles and try to stay upright.   It was as if the wind were an invisible, roaring river that was literally trying to knock us down and snatch our trek poles right out of our hands.   At around 3 pm, we found a large juniper bush and got on its lee side for a badly needed rest.   Stepping out from behind it into the gale again was quite a shock, but we pushed on and by 5 pm, we’d made it to Highway 58, where we connected with trail angel extraordinaire Christy Rosander.  Even getting our packs into her car was a battle with the wind.   And bless her foresight–she had a thermos of hot chocolate for us–what a treat after fighting cold wind for hours!

Walk to Lórien: Yuledays camping near stream

Hikertown is home to a whole flock of banty chickens, including several roosters, who started crowing enthusiastically around 4 am!  By 5:30, most of the hikers (including us) were in the hiker lounge eating breakfast that included “coffee from New York City” sent by one hiker’s girlfriend.  (”What was she thinking?” he puzzled.  “What am I supposed to do with a POUND of coffee on the trail?”  We all told him, “Don’t worry–we’ll take care of it!”)  But unknown to me,  Bill was not feeling well.  He did not feel like eating, and  had to just choke down his breakfast.

After that, we spent till almost 1 pm doing the notorious “Aqueduct Walk”.  It was not hot. It was not windy.  It was COLD, and even rained a bit!   There were rain clouds and “walls” of rain all around us, up in the Liebres to the right and the Tehachapis to the left.   I hiked along the aqueduct, eyeing the clouds and rain, thinking “Oh fun–we’ll be up IN there tonight!”   As far as the aqueduct walk itself, I know a lot of people enjoy grumping about it, but why waste your time being a grouch?   I love the sweeping views, the weird little houses, the quirky people, and the wildflowers along the way.   But I got worried at dinnertime because Bill would not eat.   He said he felt nauseous.   My heart just sank.   Could this be a rerun of what we went through in 2005, starting already?   I was worried.

And then as we turned north, into the Tehachapi Mtns. a wonderful thing happened.  The clouds began to lift,  break up, and float away.  And so we wound our way up and up into those amazing mountains, all the way to Gamble Canyon, where we managed to make a “hunker down” camp in a very strong, cold wind.   The clouds were reassembling and looked a bit ominous, so we battled to put up the tarp, using rocks instead of stakes, since we were on soft sand.   Bill went straight to bed and just collapsed.    I  prayed.

Walk to Lórien: Walking Southwest in low mountains