Another thing you need to look out for when sleeping under trees are what thru-hikers call “widow makers “. Because of this we’re both pretty tired as we are out of rhythm. From here we slept under the shade of a tree before waking up at 3.30 pm to continue.
This meant waking up at 3 am, doing a few hours in the dark before sunrise at 5.45, and then hiking till 11.30. The heat meant that we had to employ the tactic of night hiking again and taking siestas during the day. This should mean that if we stick with this group we’ll be making good decisions for the Sierra section of the trail which will have snow and river crossings. What also filled us with relief was that the group made the right decision last night by not pushing on. The good news is we still had enough food and water that even with this set back we still had a healthy surplus between the group.
Blunty and Emily cheered us all up by putting James Blunt’s Back to Bedlam album on and we had a mini sing along.īy the morning the wind died down and we were able to carry on. There also wasn’t a lot of room so we slept head to toe all the way down the valley bed in just our sleeping bags. The wind was still very strong so we weren’t able to put our tents up. After 20 minutes of debating, we came off the trail slightly and took shelter in a valley nearby. This is the most unsafe we’ve felt in trail, and we were stuck on a hill as the wind got stronger. We met the British couple, Blunt and Emily, up here who had decided to go back down, and Paige hit the ground twice due to the force of the wind combined with the weight of her pack. The wind was phenomenal and after 4 miles we got caught in some pretty sketchy weather. This stretch has a lot of 20 mile plus carries including a 40 mile stretch between natural water sources.Īs we started to climb the mountain we realised why they’d built a wind farm on this ridge. We headed back to the trail head by about 4 pm ready to night hike 17 miles to the next water. We’re hoping that the change will mean our feet and knees start feeling better again. Joal’s shoes has lost all of the tread at the front whilst Jenny’s had no bounce left in them at all. They feel great, yet it’s crazy how brutal we’ve been to our shoes. We stopped at a German bakery and then a trail angel’s house called Wit’s End to pick up our new shoes. Everyone seemed to like having us there – which, as our ride back to the trail said, makes sense as we make up a huge amount of business in a time when the town is very quiet. We only stuck our thumb out once yet had 3 rides around town as people would come up to us and ask if we needed a hitch. Tehachapi was the most hospitable place on the trail so far.
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