Miles hiked: 24.2.
Up early again, with the first goal of the day being to make it to Hiker Town before it got too hot. The trail continued following a ridge of chaparral then Live Oak savanna, with views south west to the foggy lowlands and north and east over the warming desert. The low light slanted through the trees and the grass and Fiddleneck understory glowed in the cool morning air. I saw more pig tracks (saw some yesterday too), and also saw some bear tracks going the opposite way on the trail for 30 yards.
Around PCT mile 506 the trail began descending a ridge down to the floor of the Mojave, but took quite a roundabout route to get there. On the map the trail in this area looks a bit like a partially denatured protein, as it follows the ridge 4-5 miles west of hiker town, then makes a big loop back east, tracing the contour in and out of dry little canyons.
I finally made it to Hiker Town around 11 or noon, and settled in to wait out the heat of the day.
What is Hiker Town, you might wonder. Well, it's a bit hard to say, really. The property covers a couple acres, but the main focus is the row of little buildings along he driveway, which is sort of a miniature version of a classic little town in an old Western movie. There's a hotel, general store, doctors office, jail (the chickens live here), and various other buildings. Hikers can apparently stay overnight in some of these buildings, but when I was there the main area of congregation was the 2-car garage, with both doors apparently stuck open, and a kitchen in one corner and couches and chairs spread around all hiker-grimy. Half the California population of flies had found their way to this garage and were having a field day. It's a strange place, where hikers seem to be in suspended animation. There are some injuries and quite a few hangovers on the trail now. A lot of people got sucked in to what is apparently a perpetual party at Casa de Luna for 2 or 3 or more days, and some of them have hitch hiked straight here, skipping the last 40ish trail miles and the fire detour and instead squinting in to the bright sun trying to remember what happened over the last few days. Some are going to skip the next 40 miles too, with just 1 water source, and hitch a ride to Tehachapi or Mojave. I wonder who will really get back on the trail. There is a lot more skipping of certain sections here at the back of the crowd, in contrast to before my 2 week vacation from vacation. Maybe it's just this stretch of trail we're in right now.
But the people hanging out were fun, joking, playing guitars. It's all the people I've been hiking around the last week or so, plus others on slightly different schedules.
Around 6 a small group of us finally get motivated and head out for the infamous LA Aqueduct walk across the floor of the Mojave. I'm with Chatty Kathy, Sacagawea, Blue, Hanny Da Veto (this is Hannah, who I met in The Victorville Mall; she's been vetoing possible trail names, so ended up with this), Boyardee, Energizer Bunny, and a section hiker I'm not sure the name of. We strike out across the plain, first following the open aqueduct, then along a spur of it in a big metal pipe. I think this might be the water coming from the Owen's Valley area. There are dried out fields left fallow but not growing any weeds, then eventually a thick forest of Joshua Trees. The trail here is just on dirt roads laid out in a grid across the flat land. The sun sets, the sky goes through all its colors. We take a break then head out again in the dark as a tight group past weird trailers and buildings and what seem to be a group of people with lights off to the side of a road doing something around some sort of generator. We've heard rumors of a pack of scary wild dogs in the area and here barking off in the distance. We are more afraid of tomorrow's heat, though, and want to get some more miles done in he cool of the night. Finally a bit after 10 we stop and find a place to camp off the road and there are kangaroo rats scampering around and the wind gusts over 30 mph and some people try to set up shelters and bug nets against the scary desert creepy crawlers but the wind pulls short little stakes out of the lose sand and frustrated words are blown away. I try to help a bit bury eyes really nothing to do, so go back to bed to get off my feet and eat some snacks. Before long Macho and DK Shhh (short for Donkey Whisperer) arrive, then a bit later AZ and Kobaine arrive too and set up camp and there is more joking and laughing and ooohing at the big moon rising orange, then nothing but wind and stars and snoring.
Birds:
Great Horned Owl
Wrentit
Spotted Towhee
California Thrasher
Mountain Quail
Purple Finch
Western Scrub-jay
House Wren
Mourning Dove
Gnatcatcher
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Lesser Goldfinch
Chipping Sparrow
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Acorn Woodpecker
Oak Titmouse
Black-headed Grosbeak
Western Wood-pewee
Say's Phoebe
Lark Sparrow
American Crow
House Sparrow
Western Meadowlark
Scaup
American Pipit
Cliff Swallow
Red-winged Blackbird
Horned Lark
Brewer's Blackbird
Cactus Wren
Black-throated Sparrow
Northern Mockingbird
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