Day 40

May 18

Mile 611 - Mile 631

Our campspot right as we left this morning.

The stars last night were incredible, probably the brightest and clearest so far on trail. The Milky Way was even visible. With the fly off, we noticed the stars anytime we rolled over in the night.

Unfortunately, with the fly off, we also woke up covered in condensation. It soaked our bags and made for chilly early morning hours as we tried to sleep until dawn.

We got up super early thanks to Julien who is an early riser and who camped with us last night. We were up and out by  6:15.

A little after we started hiking Mike and I found this little guy in the trail. He's a California ground squirrel and he escorted us down the trail for an incredible 5 minutes or so, only a few feet ahead of us. At one point he took the cutest dirt bath I've ever seen right in the trail in front of us.

Glowing grasses in the morning.

Lupine and mountains with round boulders.

From our starting point in the morning, the trail descended and we definitely started to feel like we were back in the desert again. 

Pretty soon the pines and grasses were only a memory and we were back in the heat, surrounded by Joshua trees, sagebrush, and a kind of bushy plant called Mormon tea.

To get to our water source for the day we had to do a detour downhill which was almost a rock scramble at times. It was actually a lot of fun but it was very hot.

Near the bottom of the gulley I felt like I was being watched and looked over to see this cow staring at me. It was a little startling since he was kinda close but it explained why we'd been seeing so many cow patties. How these animals survive in the desert is beyond me.

We got to the water which turned out to be really nice despite earlier reports of a dead bird in the water here. Fortunately there was an actual spring beyond where the bird had been found. I'm super glad we haven't had to drink dead animal water anywhere on this trip (so far?).

Roadwalking 1.4 miles back to the trail from the spring. This water source was the last for the next 30 miles so we all packed out about 5 liters each, or over 10 pounds of water. The climb back up to the trail was grueling with the water weight and intensely hot under the desert sun.

Back on the trail.

In the late afternoon we noticed all the clouds we'd been watching start to converge and form thunderheads. It was obvious that it was raining somewhere out ahead of us and we thought we heard a little thunder.

Luckily the rain was avoided and it all blew over before we got too close. We even enjoyed some cool winds and cloud cover which was excellent.

We ended our day at Bird Spring Pass where it was windy, but we found a nice protected place nonetheless near some Joshua trees. There was a nice sunset and we went to bed early so we could get up early for a 3-something mile climb tomorrow morning.