Pacific Crest Trail - Day 56 - Tehachapi and Reese Witherspoon

Start: Mile 558.5 - Willow Springs Road
End: Mile 572.9 - Backcountry campsite

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I have a hunch this one is overdue for maintenance. 😬

Prickly pear blossoms and desert flowers never get old.

This overpass is where Reese Withersp… err… Cheryl Strayed began her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail as portrayed in her novel Wild - now a major motion picture starring Reese Witherspoon.

I’m trembling in anticipation of entering the section of the trail where, like Reese Withersp… err… Cheryl Strayed, I can begin to truly find myself. The first 566 miles of trail were and are merely unimportant unnecessary pre-miles. Practice, if you will.

I wonder what Cheryl Strayed thought when she saw these raised culvert inlets.

Inspired by Reese Withersp… err… Cheryl Strayed, I began to chicken scratch Song of Myself 51, by Walt Whitman in the trail register before getting annoyed by the wind and signing my trite, not-even-Neo from the major motion picture: The Matrix inspired trail name instead.

Soledad Mountain.

Ducking the wind in an amazing little nook under a juniper tree with huge views over Mojave, CA, Highway 58, the Tehachapi wind farm, and Soledad Mountain.

Our Australian friends responsibly tucked in for the night.

We decided to brave the wind for a few miles to a campsite up the mountain.

A quick glance at the topo map showed the trail going towards the wind exposed side of the ridge. We opted for a more wind-protected overland route instead.

It was kinda windy on the ridge.

We came across a woman on a particularly windy and exposed switchback leaning into the wind with her pack on the ground and a snapped trekking pole taped together trying to get everything back together. We stood as a wind block to help her get her pack on and hiked with her to a small juniper tree for cover before carrying on up the trail. After finding a much larger juniper tree with a nook under it for shelter a couple hundred yards up the trail, I ditched my pack and ran back down to her, carrying her pack up to the large tree with her following behind. We got her situated and suggested she hunker down for the night to let the wind die down.

A bit further up the trail, we saw a hiker start out from a Piñon tree on a really exposed ridge ahead of us. We found out a bit later he was retrieving the pack of a woman who somersaulted in a gust after leaving the protection of the tree and had injured her knee. We found both of them in a stand of trees and assessed her knee injury while getting her situated for the night with some protection from the wind.

After regaining service 80+ miles later I saw a text from her thanking us for assistance and letting us know that people were now calling her “helicopter” after her somersault in the wind.

Crazy. I usually think of wind as an annoying inconvenience but it was actually pretty chaotic and dangerous on the ridges above Tehachapi in this section.

Helicopter, a complete badass, texted that she finished the next 80 miles 4 days later.

Gandalf (aka Wind Buddy) hiking up to the nearest campsite after getting everything situated with the injured hiker. He saved her from a very rough night.

We all tucked in behind a tree trunk for the night. It was way too windy to pitch the tent.