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| ~5 miles S of Bird Springs Pass Road - HDR |
June 8th, Day 15, I went
43.75 miles. I stopped at point 0406733E 3958841N at a grand total
mile 669, to finish out my day. Lets see, where to begin, where to
begin. I awoke and got my stuff together and was on trail by about
6:15am. It was still windy, but not nearly as windy as the night
before. The sun had come up – it was a nice sunrise actually down
out over Inyokern and China Lake. The mountains kinda all stacked up
on each other with different hues of purple and gray and black as the
sun was orange and yellow across the tops of them. I saw about 4
people ahead of me – they walked by while I was getting ready and
just woke up. So my goal was to catch up to them. I remembered
correctly the night before that there was a longer sandy climb,
which was what I had to do within the first 20 minutes. The easy walk
over to Bird Springs Pass cache, which actually had water – the
person who is supplying the caches had their transmission die on the
5th, and so there was a note at the Kelso Valley cache
saying that the Bird Springs one might not get delivered too or be
empty. That was good news {that the cache had water}. I didn't take
any water, I had plenty. I talked to the guys that had passed me,
there were 4 of them. Another guy came in afterwards. And then there
was a very large um....hey squirrel... a very large climb from Bird
Springs Pass. It wasn't super steep, there are parts of it. It just
winds it way up, up, up, up, up, up. When you finally peak and get
around the false summit onto the back side, you get your first long
distance glance of the Sierras – the barren peaks above tree line –
gray
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| Climbing up the big hill after Bird Springs Pass Road. |
rock and such. I met another couple, I hiked with the guy from
the couple for about 5-10 minutes, he was asking me questions because
he had heard about me. That was nice to actually move and not be
stationary while talking. My goal for the day was to get to Walker
Pass somewhat early so I could enjoy the trail magic that was
happening there via Meadow Ed from the 7-9th. I forgot
about a dry and terrible road walk for about 3 miles by McIvers
Springs. Then another dry and monotonous walk through a burn area on
top of a ridge that felt like it never ended. In 2009 on that same
ridge I found a turquoise Indian bead when I was looking for some
rocks. I actually just passed a piece of obsidian on trail, so the
Indians were out here, the evidence is all over. I met, I think a
Japanese man named 'Hi', he was walking on the road. Some ATV'ers
passed by. One stopped and we chatted for a little and they gave me
an ice cold water, which was awesome. I finally got out of the
monotonous area and was, surprised, delightfully surprised, that
there was a 4 mile downhill to Walker Pass. I arrived at Walker Pass
around about 2:30pm, so I had about 1.5 hour there. I ate, chatted
with about 10 people who were hanging out. I looovveedd just being
able to sit, especially in the middle of the day because I never
really take breaks then and have food to chow on. I had donut holes,
banana, soda, chips and salsa, bean dip, some cookies all manner of
good things. I finally left a little after 4pm and wanted
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| Sunset shadows, looking E towards Inyokern/China Lake. |
to make it
another 15-20 miles to make tomorrow easier to get into Kennedy
Meadows so I can possibly make the store while it was open as well
as have a little bit of time to just sit back and relax. Supposedly,
my parents are going to try and meet me there. Which it would be
awesome if they did, but doesn't matter if they didn't. That's what
I'm really trying to make the store just in case. I last talked with
them coming up from Highway 58, and they mentioned they might and I
said 'well if you do, pick up my packages from the store, because if
I'm late it means I'll have to wait until the morning and it'll put
me 2-3 hours behind when I actually want to be leaving'. So we'll
see, hopefully I'll make the store and see if my packages are there
or not, and if not, I'll hike down a couple miles to where they said
they'd be camping. We'll see about that. Anyways, I night, well
evening hiked, I passed the two Kiwi's that were at the trail magic,
they were pretty fun to talk to just because I actually have
experience in their country and I think most of the people they meet
don't know anything about it. I met them up about 2 hours back on
trail – they left earlier than I had. I spent about 25 minutes
chatting, giving them tips on places to go, things to see and whatnot
about the trail. Those are two guys who – ones an older guy, ones
younger in early 20's guy, by older I mean like 60. I'm not sure if
they are together, like father and son, or they were just like hey,
we're from the same country lets hike together.
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| About 50 miles to go until Kennedy Meadows! |
But I could totally
see myself hiking with those guys because they, I don't know, they
just seem more fun. I kept going, it was sooo frickin' windy. On the
area where you kind of pop out, you're on the inside of the
mountains, like facing towards the Sierras and the desert is on the
other side of the mountains, and you finally go over a saddle and
you're facing out towards Inyokern and China Lake, literally looking
straight down on the desert where they've hacked the trail into a big
rocky cliff. Some of those ridges that you kind of nose around ohh,
there are 40mph winds blasting through there. But I finally made it
through that and went down, down, down. I night hiked for a good
2.5-3 hours which was slow because the trail was rocky in places and
started going up, and fairly steeply up too which was not very fun.
My goal was a water source and finally hit that and went not very far
after to the first camp site and spent the night. This morning
actually, not even 5 minutes from camp I found there were fresh bear
tracks on top of all the footprints on the trail, so there was a bear
nearby, but they don't like people.
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| The climb just after the Walker Pass and Hwy 178 Crossing. |
