6/14 to 7/1: Antelope Valley

LA Aqueduct

Everything Falls Apart

According to Buddhist philosophers, all conditioned things—any thing whose existence is dependent on something else—are transient or impermanent. Moreover, according to Buddhist philosophers, since all existence is conditioned, everything is impermanent. Whether or not this thesis is true in general, it is painfully true on the PCT at least. All of your plans, your gear, your body, your mood, your food, your water are dependent on something else and so will change or fall apart at some point. By the time I arrived in Mojave, I experienced multiple complications with my gear. The ignition on my Jetboil broke, which wasn’t too bad since I could still use my lighter to ignite my fuel. The zipper on my tent started acting up, but if I was careful I could still get it to close and keep the buggies out. A seam in my pack started to split leaving a gaping hole in the back. But the problem was more cosmetic than functional and ULA had a free replacement waiting for me in Mojave. More problematic was the hole in my air sleeping pad that I got the night before I made it to Mojave. But worse than all of this was the physical and emotional collapse I experienced after I left the Andersons.

I’ve already mentioned the issues I had with my IT band, but in case I have underplayed the extent of the pain I felt, let me explain. The iliotibial band is a thick ligament that runs from the hip to the shin along the outside of your thigh. When this band tightens from extensive use it repeatedly rubs against bone and becomes inflamed. I had experienced IT band inflammation in my right leg before the hike, so I was familiar with it. However, it was not my right IT band that became a problem during the hike but my left. Consider a scale of 0-10, where at 0 there is absolutely no pain, 1-2 is noticeable sensations in the affected area, 3-5 is noticeable discomfort with possible change in behavior, motion, gait, etc., 6-8 is grimacing discomfort and definite change in behavior, motion, gait, etc. and 9-10 is extreme discomfort with an inability to perform some activity and considerations of death or at the very least amputation as a means of relief (and 11 is the complete dissipation and transfer of all bodily matter into the dimensions of hell). Starting on the fifth day of my hike the pain in my left (and sometimes right) IT band consistently stayed between 4-5 and would sometimes reach levels between 8-10.5. The pain was mostly located on the side of my left knee. I would walk a few miles and then I would start experiencing extreme pain at the slightest bend of my knee. Of course walking requires bending you knees—a lot—so this was not a good situation to be in.  Sometimes I could walk through the pain. Sometimes I would simply try not to bend my left leg at all while hiking. Of course, this kind of compensation did not get rid of the pain and could have led to further injuries, so sometimes I would just have to stop hiking for an hour or so. I stretched, took lots of Aleve—sometimes potentially kidney damaging amounts, and took about 7 days off in total to ice and rest during the first month of my hike. There were many times I wanted to quit hiking because of the pain and even thought that maybe it was the healthy thing to do. But after Wrightwood things started improving greatly. As I said in the previous post, by the time I left the Andersons I was feeling really good and planned on hiking 30 miles the day after I left. But nothing is predictable on a hike, and if it’s not one thing, it’s bound to be another. On the day I came down the Angeles Crest and started approaching Hikertown—a sort of hostel on Highway 138 that is not to be confused with Hiker Heaven—I started experiencing extreme pain in my right shin. On the previous night, the pain was subtle, perhaps a 2, but on the next day after about eight miles of hiking the pain advanced to level 9. Though I had never had them before, I knew right away that I had some form of shin splints, which was bad. Unlike ITBS, you cannot walk through shin splints, and if you try, then the inflamed tendons will tear small pieces of bone from your shin if that has not already happened. This new injury was potentially trip ending in a very big way. If it wasn’t the physical pain, it was the emotional pain and frustration that brought me to tears. Right before Highway 138 the trail has to meander around private property. Every step was extremely painful and seemed to not get me closer to Hikertown so I could rest and assess my situation. The pain was so bad I had to stop every 50 feet. In one of my lowest points on the trip, in complete frustration and dismay I went Kylo Ren with my trekking poles on a dry dead tree (very bad LNT). I eventually hobbled my way down to Hikertown, where I would spend a very strange and depressing two nights.

Smoke from Santa Barbara wildfire as I was coming down the Angeles Crest. Approx. mile 510.

True Lies

Hikertown is located on Highway 138 in the Antelope Valley of the Mojave Desert. Antelope Valley is flat, dry, hot, very windy, and largely undeveloped. The LA Aqueduct runs through the valley carrying water from Owens Valley in the Sierras south to LA. Hikertown is not a town but a 2-3 acre piece of property owned by a somewhat eccentric developer and former movie producer who owns much of the land in this area. On the property sits a main house surrounded by a number of small shanties and tiny trailers. Many of these structures have faux facades of the kinds of buildings you would expect to find in a Spaghetti Western—a City Hall, City Jail, Feed Store, Motel, etc. There were random cars, tractors, plywood cable spools, bathtubs, and piles of random objects in between the various shelters. When I arrived, Steve and Danielle were leaving and there were three other hikers there. Rounding out the overall affect of abandonment was a thin layer of dust covering everything. Hikertown was sort of run like a hostel, and it was managed by a caretaker who seemed to be a bit neurotic and somewhat passive aggressive but otherwise nice. And I imagine it had to be somewhat stressful to manage such an unruly piece of property infested daily with a large number of hikers and visitors during the peak of the season. While there was a required “donation” of $10, it seemed to be ineffectively and inconsistently enforced.  The caretaker and I got along just fine though there were tensions with other hikers, and maybe it had to do with my making the “donation” but others not. Many hikers have packages sent here or at the very least stop for water. About four miles east on Highway 138 is a small convenience store with a burrito bar and a lounge area where hikers sometimes congregate.

Hikertown.

Old timey facades.

I didn’t want to stay here—it felt strange and I wanted to keep hiking! But I could not walk. The caretaker set me up in one of the tiny trailers. This trailer was about 12 ft. by 6 ft. with a single size bed that looked like it may or may not have had bed bugs (despite appearances, after two nights there I’m pretty sure that it did not in fact have bed bugs). The floor was made of fake wood. There were outlets in the walls, but no electricity. All of the walls had fake wood paneling and the easterly facing wall had a small window, which did not open, and a sliding glass door (which did open). It was cold at night and very hot during the day. The trailer was not air conditioned and would trap heat from the Sun creating a little toaster oven. By 10:00 AM it was easily over 90 degrees Fahrenheit inside the trailer. The wind howled, whistled and rocked the trailer pretty much 24 hours a day. But the wind did not help with the heat in the trailer because it was blowing from the west and the sliding glass door faced east. The ceiling had old ceiling tiles, like the kind you find in old businesses and school classrooms—you know, the kind full of tiny holes and asbestos. I had hoped that after the first night my shin would feel better and I could hike out at least making small miles, but instead it felt worse. I could hardly put any weight on my leg. I thought that this was how my hike was going to end: helpless in an oven shanty with fake wood walls that is part of a fake town in the middle of a big fucking empty desert. Moreover, there was no easy escape to civilization should it turn out to be the end of my hike. It felt like some sort of surreal allegory of the hike en total and possibly of my life. I didn’t start university until I was 27. During this time, on really bad days, especially in graduate school, I’ve worried that it has all been motivated by some sort of latent narcissism and therefore empty and therefore I have been living as a sort of intellectual imposter with no clear or obvious way out or alternative. This hike was now potentially a failure with once again unclear motivations and no obvious way out. This was a new existential low on the hike.

On day two I hitched to the convenience store. There was a broken down newer model BMW nearby. Two construction workers passed me but turned around and gave me a ride. They asked if the BMW was mine. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. I spent the day in the lounge of the convenience store icing my shin, consuming what is normally an unhealthy amount of fat and sugar but which my deprived body burned faster than you can say “more deep fried snickers wrapped in pizza, please!”. In addition to the empty calories, I consumed lots of empty entertainment. It turns out that the movie True Lies, starring Jamie Lee Curits and Arnold Schwarzenegger, really, really sucks. Not only is the dialogue incredibly lame, but the movie is also extremely sexist, bigoted, and xenophobic. The only saving grace of the day was the guitar I had found at Hikertown, which I spent a lot of time playing. I kept icing my leg and kept it wrapped to reduce the swelling. That evening two hikers showed up. Including myself, that made a total of 5. I went to bed hoping that my leg would feel better it the morning, but it didn’t. And in a very strange turn of events, when I woke up, I was the only hiker left at Hikertown. In fact, the caretaker and I were the only ones left on the property. The caretaker was walking around passive aggressively cleaning. He informed me that he threw everyone out the night before and was closing for the season. This was very odd. While the main bubble of hikers was a couple hundred miles ahead in the Sierras, I was pretty sure that I was not the last hiker on the trail and that there were still quite a few hikers behind me. Regardless, now I was in a bind: try to hitch 40 miles so that I could bail or try to hike with my injury.

I packed up my gear and got a hitch to the C-Store around noon. I decided that I would try to hike out that night. The next section of PCT ran directly along the LA aqueduct for about 30 miles and was extremely exposed. Temperatures were in the 100s, so hiking out during the day was not an option—it was time to try night hiking. If you want to minimize time in the heat, basically there are two options: second shift, where you hike mostly between 5:00 PM and around 2:00 AM; or third shift where you hike mostly between 9:00 PM and around 6:00 AM. To that point, I had been fairly resistant to hiking at night. But I started thinking about all of the times I would go to happy hour and find myself still drinking and dancing at 2:00 AM. So, if I could do that, why the hell couldn’t I hike second shift? No reason. So that’s what I was going to do. I still wasn’t sure how bad my shin splints were, namely I wasn’t sure if I had a stress fracture. So, my plan was to take it slow, take short steps, take lots of Aleve, and take a break every hour. No matter what, I was going to make it to Mojave and rest for a few days and then decide whether or not to bail. Around 5:00 PM I got a hitch from the C-Store back to the trail. It was a younger person who wanted to hike the PCT one day and so was super excited to give me a ride. His enthusiasm for just helping a hiker was a bit contagious and lifted my spirits.

Black Cows at Midnight

Sun setting behind the Tehachapi Mountains. 

It was still brutally hot. But after a couple hours the sun started setting behind the mountains to the northwest creating a lovely silhouette. The color field in the western sky was spectacular. The Joshua trees, which were gilded by the setting sun, looked like people congregating on the valley floor for nighttime festivities and cheering me on. To the southeast the moon was rising bright and full. This would be my nightlight. After being excited by the heat of the sun all day, the air sitting on the valley floor settled into a steady, calming evening tone. Despite the pain in my shin, I was moving slow and steady. After the brief evening respite, the night began to come alive. LA aqueduct flowed exposed for the first few miles after Highway 138 and then flowed into an underground pipe system that was covered by a concrete pathway the size of a small road. This concrete pathway served as a maintenance road and also served as the PCT for about six miles. It also served as a lovely backdrop for my moon shadow, which I watched dance along as I gradually headed northeast. At one point I came across what appeared to be a trailer park or junk yard of some sort sitting on the north side of the trail. The tops and sides of the structures were illuminated only by the moonlight. From what I could see, if what I was seeing were in fact trailers, they seemed dirty and in disrepair. Moreover, the area was only accessible by a dirt road and I had not seen any cars. So I figured that it was an unoccupied junk yard of some sort. By that point the pain was worsening and I was stopping every 45 minutes to rest. Despite the pain, there was something excited about hanging out in the moonlight in the middle of a desert valley floor. I stopped to rest about an 1/8 of a mile northeast of what I thought was an empty junk yard. Then I heard loud voices. My blood ran cold as I tried to locate exactly where the voices were coming from and where they were going. It turned out that the voices were coming from what I thought was the abandoned junk yard. Fortunately, they were staying in one location. I guess the lot was a trailer park after all. Still, my adrenalin was pumping and thoughts of being abducted and tortured by some fringe desert valley community motivated me to keep moving. I made it about 300 yards when I saw two pairs eyes glowing in the night staring at me. I froze and struggled to make out what had grabbed my attention . Eventually I was able to distinguish the silhouettes of two black cows from the other shadows and silhouettes. By 1:30 AM I felt exhausted and could no longer hike with the pain. I found a flat spot near some Joshua trees off of a service road. I was a little nervous about camping there because I wasn’t sure if I was on private property, but I figured I would get up early enough to get back on the trail before anyone came by.

Heading north along the LA Aqueduct.

Joshua Trees. Approx. mile 524

My nightlight.

Morning Joshua Trees.

I was back on the trail by 5:00 AM. I managed to hike about 4 hours before the heat became unbearable. The best I could do for shelter from the sun was some sort of large pine shrub. Eventually the sun chased me out and I had to move and find shelter. I was close to a farm of wind turbines and decided to make my way to one and take shelter in its shadow. It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and windy. Nothing was moving. There was a small flock of birds also taking refuge in the shadow of the looming wind turbine. Everything was hot: the wind, the air, the ground, my water, … I still felt depressed but I could not bring myself to officially call it quits. Besides, it would have been pointless since no matter what I had to hike into the Tehachapi mountains to get to Mojave. So I tried to find some optimism and bargained with myself while hoping that I wasn’t in denial. So, in the shadow of that looming wind turbine I decided that I was no longer going to make it to Canada and finish the entire trail. My thru hike was turning into a section hike. I managed to hike most of the desert, which I was grateful for, but I really wanted to hike through the Sierras, which was the original motivator. I figured that if I could average 9 miles a day I could at least make it to Yosemite Valley in time to fly out of Reno so that I could attend a philosophy workshop/conference, Metaphysical Mayhem, I was accepted to. Originally I had planned on flying back to the trail after the conference, but if I was going to have to fly back to Reno and not Portland, there was no way I was going to make it to Canada before the Washington snow. This prospect was disappointing, but nowhere near as disappointing as the prospect of quitting in Mojave and missing the Sierras.

Hotz!

Antelope Valley Wind Farm.

So loud!

Grasshopper sharing the shade.

By 5:00 PM I could no longer take the boredom, uncertainty, and frustration. The temperature had fallen from 111 degrees Fahrenheit to about 100, so I decided to move forward but slowly. My leg still hurt but could have been much worse. I made it to Tyler Horse canyon for some much needed water and surprisingly ran into four hikers that I had met at Hikertown. Two of them had been kicked out by the caretaker at 2:00 AM that last night I was there. I asked them what had happened. They were not sure. They said they offered money, but nothing would change the caretaker’s mind. He said that he was closing due to the heat wave. This might have made sense except for the facts that he did not kick me out and even if he was closing due to the heat, that didn’t require making people leave at 2 AM when it was a bit chilly. It was a mystery. Anyway, it was 6:30 PM, and the hikers I ran into were going to hike through the night and try and hike the remaining 16 miles to Tehachapi-Willow Springs Road from where you can hitch to the towns of Tehachapi or Mojave. Since my shin pain was slowing me way down (I was limping pretty bad), I knew I couldn’t make the entire 16 miles. However, I knew I could get to the road by noon the next day if I hiked late into the night. I had a new pack from ULA waiting for me at the Motel 6 in Mojave and I wanted to rest for a few days with the hope that my shin would improve. So I began my climb into the Tehachapi mountains.

Sheep as I started hiking towards Tyler Horse Canyon.

That night ended up being my worst night on the trail.  There was a 2000 ft elevation gain between miles 541 and 548 and due to past storms the trail, which was like beach sand, was completely washed out in many places. To make matters worse the light of the moon was hidden behind a ridge until late into the evening so the trail was difficult to find even with my headlamp. I lost the trail a few times and almost slid down a ridge. My shin starting hurting more and more. By 12:30 AM I was at the top of a ridge and completely drained physically and mentally. The wind was blowing steadily over 25 mph and gusting up to 40-50 mph. I couldn’t set up my tent so I inflated my air pad and tried to sleep. My air pad, which had a slow leak, was punctured by a rock, and I woke up at 3:00 AM. The wind was very intense and there was no way I was going back to sleep. I had 10 miles to go, so I decided to get up and make my way. I was so exhausted when I stopped earlier that night that I didn’t pay attention to where I had come off the trail. After about 20 minutes I found the trail. I wasn’t on the trail for more than 10 minutes when a strong gust of wind nearly knocked me back and blew sand in my eyes. It was really bad in my right eye, which felt like it had sand stuck in it and I could barely keep it open while I hiked. There was a water cache at the top of a ridge, so I took a small bottle of water and tried to flush my eye out, but it didn’t work. There were large ants all over the trail, and I got 5-6 really painful bites. One of them was particularly bad—it was swollen and extremely painful for over 24 hours and the skin around it was clammy and cold. A number of people had suggested that it was a scorpion bite and not an ant bite. By the time I made it down to Tehachapi Road I could barely put weight on my shin. Eventually I made it into the town of Mojave.

Cool rock sediment.

Mojave

I spent the next six nights at the Motel 6 in Mojave. There is not much going on in Mojave. You describe it as a tumbleweed town with lots of poverty. So the Motel 6 was very cheap and also gave a nice hiker discount. Despite expectations, the room was very clean. The first three days the wind storm that had started on my decent from the Tehachapi mountains was still in full effect. The winds were gusting to 60+. The power went out a number of times and there were 4-5 inch waves in the pool. I spent the next five days in my room taking lots of Aleve, icing my shin every hour, stretching, and trying to do some philosophy. Every day I would walk to get ice or to go to the store hoping that my walk would be pain free. There was some improvement, but not enough to feel confident about getting back on the trail. However, I couldn’t stay in Mojave forever, so I had to decide: bail while I had access to public transportation or get back on the trail. I decided that I would get back on the trail. My plan was to leave on a Saturday, but a fire broke out near Lake Isabella and the pcta closed the 90+ miles of trail from Tehachapi to Walker Pass, which is 50 miles south of Kennedy Meadows. I wasn’t sure what to do. I reached out for help on the facebook PCT page and trail angels, Erica and Jason, in Ridgecrest offered their home to me and could arrange a ride to Kennedy Meadows, which is where the Sierras start. This meant skipping 140 miles of trail. Despite the fact that I was entertaining the thought of not making it to Canada, I still wasn’t 100% sure and wanted to have as continuous a hike as I could. But with the fire closure and remaining shin pain, things were out my control. I decided to take up Erica and Jason’s offer and took a bus to Ridgecrest.

I spent a day at Erica and Jason’s and then got a ride to Kennedy Meadows from a former thru hiker named Scott. I was relieved to see lots of hikers still at Kennedy Meadows, which is a major resupply point for all PCT hikers. I ran into some old new trail friends. Every morning the teenage child of the owners of Grumpy Bear’s Restaurant would come pick up hikers and take us to the restaurant. They only had one breakfast: eggs, bacon, hash browns and a pancake that was about 16 inches in diameter and 2 inches thick. I tried my best two mornings in a row, but after a week off the trail I mostly lost my hiker hunger and I was unable to eat absolutely everything (but I came close!). While I was at Kennedy Meadows, a reporter from the LA Times called the general store and asked to speak to a hiker about the fire closures on the trail. The store owner asked if I could do the interview and I obliged. (The interview is here.) The story is not a general story about the fires, and the point of the article to look at the fires and closures from the perspective of a thru hiker. However, I want to emphasize that I fully understand that the inconveniences to hiking that come with trail closures are nothing compared to the benefit and necessity of the closures to repairing the ecosystems damaged from current and past fires. Most importantly, any obstacle that the closures present to hikers is nothing compared to the real and substantial loss people in the affected communities experience, and I have upmost respect and admiration for the California fire fighters who risk their lives to save homes and protect the wilderness.

I spent two days getting ready for the Sierras both mentally and physically. I had sent my ice axe and crampons to Kennedy Meadows when I flew into San Diego, but I arrived to KM late enough in the season to send them to my grandmother’s, which saved some weight. Every little bit of weight I could save helped. A bear canister is required through most of the Sierras, which weighs 2-3 lbs, and most hikers pick up their bear canister in Kennedy Meadows. I also had new shoes and inserts waiting for me as well as food that I mailed from Mojave. Most importantly, I was able to rest my shin for a few more days. To me the most tragic way the hike could end would be not making it through the Sierras. Fortunately, my shin improved a lot by the time I left Erica and Jason’s. It was still swelling a bit at night but would improve as the day went on. The day before I left Kennedy Meadows I hiked a couple of miles without a pack and experienced no pain. I started to feel more optimistic.

It is alleged that right before he passed, Gautama’s last words were, “All conditioned things are transient. Strive on with diligence.” So, despite the injuries and complications, I decided to hike on with diligence.