Day 49
Today's Miles: 16.8
We woke up early this morning after an off and on windy night. Nothing like the day before, but we got some good gusts in the canyon we were camped in. We woke up and got hiking about 5:30am with Bone Lady in front of us while Swiss Cheese and Bucket were shortly behind. The first few miles we got a great view overlooking the wind farm we hiked right through yesterday as the sun began to come up.
Looking back East toward the Mojave.
We climbed down into a deep canyon about 3 miles into the day and got a view straight accross of our 4.5 mile climb up the other side. Unfortunately, we didn't get a good picture of it but the switchbacks looked awesome from the South side of the canyon. On the way up we passed a hiker we hadn't met before named "A Squared". He had aparently hiked South from Highway 58 to Hiker Town and decided he like the desert so much he turned around and was hiking back from where he came. About half a mile from the top of the 2,000ft climb, we came accross a cache that had been left for hikers and took a break there. Shortly after, we started to drop over the other side of the mountains we had just climbed and found ourselves in a burn area. We even saw a little Poodle Dog Bush, but mostly just burnt Oaks and more windmills.
As we hiked on, we couldn't help but think of how beautiful the area we were walking through must have been before the fire that had come through the area. It was nice and flat in many areas and with the trees that used to be there would have made for great camping...but today we passed right through. We climbed lower and lower into another wind farm before hitting Tehachapi Willow Springs Road where my Step-Sister Lisa was waiting to pick us up for our stay just outside of town.
We met up with Lisa and headed back to her and her husband's (David) home where we quickly showered and were handed cold drinks before were were even able to put our packs away. We are looking forward to taking a couple days to handle a few gear issues we've had in the last few days as well as to visit with more family along the way.
-Tailgate
