Day 33

May 11

Mile 478 - Mile 508

Hordes of thruhikers in the front yard.

After a final pancake breakfast and a group photo, Terrie drove us back to the trail.

Before she left, we got one last picture. Here Terrie is goosing the guys. We got her back by mooning her as she drove away. We had a ton of fun at Casa de Luna and it was tough to go, but we had a long roadwalk ahead of us and so on our way we went.

Roadwalking with a big group of hikers.

The roadwalk was a detour around a section that was closed due to a wildfire a couple of years ago. It was a little over 12 miles long (although it cutoff about 3 miles of trail), so it looked on paper like we did a 30 mile day today but in actuality we did 27. The walk was exposed and hard on the feet, but we were thankful that there wasn't a lot of traffic. So that was good.

Dried up lake bed complete with upended shopping cart.

After passing two mostly dried up lakes and taking a quick break at a deserted lake shore picnic area, we made it to the Lake Hughes post office before noon to pick up some packages. From there we walked past the one "convenience"

store in town and decided to stop at the only restaurant for a snack before finishing the roadwalk and heading back into the mountains. An interesting fact that we found out later was we were actually walking along the San Andreas Fault as we walked the valley. 

Abandoned gas station along the way. 

On the outskirts of town we found our connector trail that would bring us back to the PCT. It was a steep climb back up to the ridge, but there were interesting things to see along the way, such as a deserted campground. This part was reminiscent of a section on the AT for us in that the forest was full of grasses, flowers, scrubby pines, and even some oaks. 

Laura walking through a "green tunnel".

View looking south towards the closed section. 

Our next big milestone was just ahead as the sun began to approach the horizon and the shadows became longer.

500 miles down, 2150 to go!

Our group stopped at the marker for a celebratory snack. Soon other hikers joined us as we sat in some of the last sunlight of the day and relaxed. After the break our next stop was an underground cystern on the ridge which was to be our water source for the night, but when we arrived we found it to be empty. We decided to eat dinner (while watching another amazing sunset from on top of the water tank) then push on to the next water. Hiking in the dark, we became separated from our friends and after 6 miles we reached the final water source before descending into the Mohave proper. We waited for an hour before deciding to set up camp and finally they showed up. Apparently they had stopped 4 miles back to check another water source but had a difficult time finding it, and when they did they found that the water was disgusting and full of algae. Needless to say, they passed on the opportunity to fill up there and decided to hold out for the spring (where we camped). It was well after hiker midnight when we called it a night, and we were thankful to not have to drink the gross water from the "guzzler". 

(FYI- guzzlers are like rain water retention tanks in the desert, similar to a sewer. Yuck.)

We camped in a meadow near a horse camp, glad to actually be near water for the morning. It was a long day and we planned to get up early to get some more big miles in tomorrow.