Pacific Crest Trail - Day 52 - Los Angeles Aqueduct and Tehachapi Mountains
Start: Mile 517.6 - Neenach Cafe - Hikertown
End: Mile 558.5 - Tehachapi
The Pacific Crest Trail was “completed” in 1993, 80 years after William Mulholland stood at the opening of the gates of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and famously declared “There it is. Take it.” referring to the water he and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power pilfered from the Owens Valley.
The scale of the Los Angeles Aqueduct is difficult to comprehend - and its hundreds of miles of steel and concrete was constructed decades before a footpath existed through this section.
We had the pleasure (lol) of walking on top of millions of gallons of water flowing through the aqueduct beneath our feet for ~13 miles in this stretch through one of the most arid deserts in the world.
These glow stick adorned people were aiming to complete the 37 miles to Tehachapi in one go. Like, just go to Burning Man already.
Lancaster, CA - hideous during the day, kinda pretty in the distance at night.
The moon was very bright.
Walking towards the red blinking lights from the windmills in the night was very surreal.
We started at sunset and walked ~17 miles into the early morning to a faucet generously provided “Courtesy of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power”.
We camped for a few hours in some pretty high winds near the faucet, and started climbing into the Tehachapi mountains through a wind farm of the biggest windmills I’ve ever seen.
7.7 miles of constant wind and the drone of windmills over an ever-steepening climb straight up the foothills may have been the hardest miles so far.
We pitched the tent for a few hours to rest near a creek in this canyon, packing up when the wind picked up and started threatening to blow down the tent.
We pushed on, setting up camp for the night before a 1600’ climb up and out of this ravine. The wind picked up through the night, and after 100+ pounds of rock and half-a-dozen attempts at securing an up-wind tent stake couldn’t keep it secured in the ground, we mentally prepared for a long night of hiking before packing up around ~1:00 am and heading up the climb in the dark under a full moon.
Probably should have heeded this warning about the tent sites in the ravine, but exhausted with 1600’ of climbing ahead, we hoped it would die down as the sun set. It didn’t.
Another comment on the tent sites near the summit which were essentially the only places to camp until a road ~10 miles down a ridge through a massive wind farm.
There was a water cache and hiker support station near the summit where we filled up our water bottles at ~2:30 am. I spilled a little water on our gloves while pouring in the wind and our hands got chilled rapidly. We walked past 10-12 tents set-up and hanging on for dear life in clearings in the brush through this area.
The temperatures hiking into Hikertown the day before were 95+F degrees. We woke up with frost covering our sleeping bags after finding shelter over the summit in a clearing in some thick post-fire scrub brush. In a stretch infamous for heat and monotony, we had the coldest and harshest day on trail.
Sharing stories with other hikers, we made it out relatively unscathed. Multiple groups had tents destroyed when tent poles snapped or lost items in the chaos of attempting to secure their shelter in the wind.
It wasn’t an easy decision to pack up and hike in the middle of the night with headlamps, but it seemed the only option to stay warm and find any protection from the cold wind. We slept wearing all of the clothes we had in our bags and stayed warm(ish) if generally uncomfortable ducking the wind tucked away in our sleeping bags.
Currently resting up in Tehachapi after ~37 miles over 40 rough hours.