Fri. June 10    Miles today: 23.2   Total so far: 528.7     So. CA section E

The cold wind howled all night while we snuggled in our sleeping bags, and this morning we literally woke up IN a cloud!  The clouds made the oak forest look very pretty and mysterious as we got ontrail by 5:45.  A bit of uphill got us high enough to be able to watch the sunrise from ABOVE the clouds.  The trail wound through grassy hillsides and oak forests that looked like a park, with beautiful views in every direction. 

And finally, a first–a POND, right by the trail!  This was the first pond we’ve come to–so far it’s all been creeks, lakes and rivers.  So of course we had to stop there for a snack and a rest!

Just then, along came some of “the gang”from Agua Dulce and yesterday’s “Anderson Oasis”. They veered off the trail the minute they saw me, with a message.  “Hey, Monty, you left something in Agua Dulce–where should Mrs. Saufley mail it?”  Yup, I KNEW I’d left something behind (which I had spent quite awhile looking for and finally gave up)–a little plastic ziplok baggie with our resupply notes, my eyeglass prescription, etc.  I was VERY glad to know it was safe, and planned to call the Saufleys as soon as we reached our next resupply later today.  Turned out it got left in the trailer, during the time when we were trying to organize for our “skip” up to Oregon.  And since it also contained a credit card, I will say this:  So far, I have been VERY impressed with the integrity of the majority of thruhikers.  Not only do they care for the trail, but for each other!

The “gang” headed on, and so did Bill and I, after we finished our snack.  But the trail stopped being beautiful, and turned awful.  It was heavily eroded and gullied.  Some of the gullies were 10 feet deep and hard to get around.  Eventually we reached the border of Tejon Ranch property, and from then on, it was seven miles of “Behave yourself!  No Camping!  No fires!  Stay on the trail!”  And the trail itself followed a very weird path down into every creekbed, both large an small.  The scenery was pretty barren, too.  The Tejon Ranch for years has been the big holdout on the PCT route, refusing to allow a trail to go through their property.  At Hiker Heaven, there had been much jubilation because recently the Ranch agred to allow a trail corridor!  Hooray!  When that’s done (and it will be years), there will be no more ugly trail and no more “walking the aqueduct” as we will do today and tomorrow.

Well, finally we came down out of the hills into the wide Antelope Valley, headed for our resupply at “The Country Store.”  I had heard some tales of nasty, aggressive Mojave Green rattlesnakes along this stretch of trail, so I kept a sharp eye out, and saw no snakes at all,  but some pretty horses! 

To reach the Store was a 1.1 mile walk on a dirt road by a busy highway, but it was worth it!  We had a very nice time there, with a BIG lunch, shopping for food, loading up on water, and writing in journals.  I would highly recommend the Country Store as a resupply for thru-hikers.  The folks here are supernice and helpful, and  by sitting out in front of the store, we got to have some fun talking to the “locals.”  One young guy was in the parking lot practicing with his new bullwhip.  He let me look at his whip, and I was amazed to find that the end is just a little bit of soft, fuzzy stuff. 

Shortly before we were going to leave, some other thru-hikers arrived–Chris from Indiana, who was really nice, and then Josh ‘n Anna again!  They had gotten a ride to the Store from the guy who runs a place called “Hikertown”, right by the PCT.  (We saw it, but did not go there, because we heard it was kind of weird.)  The other guys were just picking up a few things, and we all ended up getting a ride back to the PCT. 

Chris-from-Indiana was very friendly, and walked with us for a couple of hours..  The first item on our “itinerary” was the California Aqueduct.  We are in the Mojave now, and the soil is very dry.  Approaching the aqueduct, it was not just dry, but cracked with big cracks like a giant jigsaw puzzle.  We climbed up the berm, and there it was–a fastmoving large river running along a concrete river bed.  We were all about to begin the notorious “aqueduct walk section” of the PCT–miles and miles through the Mojave Desert with the Joshua trees and the Mojave Green rattlesnakes and the scorpions, and….usually horrendous heat that forces even thru-hikers to travel at night.   But the locals back at the Country Store had told us, “Here, it’s either really HOT or it’s really WINDY,”  and for us, we were in the “really windy!”  And it was quite a wind–lively, gusty, and quite cool. 

After a couple of miles, we came to a place which posed a very interesting engineering problem, but neatly solved!  Problem:  How do you cross one aqueduct over/through another?  Solution: Run one aqueduct into a huge pipe, like a bridge, OVER the other aqueduct.  Bravo to the engineers who pulled that off! 

 After that “crossing”, the PCT turned to head north, following the aqueduct-in-a-pipe, the Los Angeles Aqueduct.  After weeks of uphills, downhills and rough trail, it was quite relaxing to just walk and talk along a flat dirt road.  And there were lots of the famous Joshua trees!  We’d been warned not to bumpinto them–their sharp pointy leaves have an intense irritant.  Eventually the aqueduct went underground, with a concrete top that looked like a road.  We noticed that the local residents used it exactly for that purpose! 

We had a lot of fun looking at the “houses” as we walked along the “road.”  I guess they don’t worry much about building codes!  The houses were of every design and many obvously “homemade.”  But we didn’t stare too long, because the frequent “No Trespassing” signs were pretty emphatic!  But what a wonderful view these folks have!  The Antelope Valley is wide, with mountains on both sides.  We were heading for the Tehachapis, which in the late afternoon were wearing a topping of clouds.

Around 6:00 pm, we stopped to cook some dinner, while Chris hiked on.  The cooking logistics were “interesting.”  The wind was really blowing now–often in gusts so strong that they made us stagger.  How do you light your tiny alcohol stove and cook up some hot mochas and a big pot of mashed potatoes with bacon and mushroom bits in that kind of situation?  Solution–every now and then along the aqueduct, there is a 2 foot high concrete box for access to the water.  Put your stove and pot on the LEE side of a box, and voila–dinner!  Sadly, these boxes used to be waterholes where PCT hikers had access to aqueduct water, but the openings are now all welded shut.  We had to carry on our backs enough water to last over 16 miles. 

After our very tasty dinner, we headed on for a few more easy miles before dark.  We enjoyed the lovely evening light, which included a sort of “desert alpenglow,” and finally  found a cozy flat spot in the sand off the trail for a comfortable camp.  Bill gave the nearby bushes a good poking and whacking with his stick to make sure there were no snakes!  The sky tonight here in the desert is gorgeous–we can see the Milky Way.  Truly ” The heavens declare the glory of God,” as the Bible says.  And I am VERY grateful that my little “baggie” is safe (it will be at our next resupply) and that we are not having to deal with horrendous desert heat.