Miles hiked: 21.1.
Hiking by 4:50, with the Fear of the Sun rooted deeply within me as the dawn turned to day. Common Nighthawks swooped over the dirt road and Joshua Trees were silhouetted in the sunrise. The tents and shelters of various hikers are scattered about on either side of the road for the next few miles, where they finally quit walking last night. I skirt around the south side of a small "badlands" area of deeply eroded hills, then begin 7 miles walking through a giant wind farm. Turbines 300 feet tall with big whooshing blades; a network of dirt roads connecting them; the hot dry desert with a few bushes and Joshua Trees. A Scott's Oriole, Horned Larks, a Raven.
At 8 I take a break in the shade of a Joshua Tree, with a towering turbine right overhead, and lay with my feet up on my pack. I reshuffle water from bladders to bottles for easier drinking then continue, taking a quick detour to search around a turbine for dead bats or birds (none found). The trail now climbs gradually toward some hills. The turbines are so huge that they warp my sense of space; it seems like I'm almost to one for 5 minutes of walking; they look big from a distance, but just keep growing as I near until they are dizzyingly tall.
Finally exiting the wind farm and climbing up into the hills, in and out of little draws then down into the steep sided Tylerhorse Canyon. I've gone about 15 miles by 10:45 and feel proud. Here I find a small trickle of a stream, right where the water report said it would be. I set up for siesta, choosing a spot where the shade will remain all day. Over the next few hours the rest of my little herd trickles in. An older guy who doesn't seem to be happy about anything also arrives, grumbling about the noisey hikers about to arrive, and laying down in the middle of the trail in the sun with no hat on for some reason; it seems like he's trying to make a point about how soft we are sitting in the shade and how tough he is. When he stands up he staggers a bit and I think he's going to go down. But he doesn't, just shoulders his pack and trudges off in the mid-day heat.
The rest of us have a jolly siesta, lounging in the shade and wind, cooking little meals on stove or wrapping whatever we can find up in tortillas, taking the few steps to filter another liter of water. I get to know Canyon (dad) Sky (mom) and Rabbit (daughter), who are a really fun family.'before I can ask Rabbit how old she is, she tells us all how tired she is of that question; I think she's around 11 or so. All together there are about 20 hikers scattered around various patches of shade. A big cloud builds above us and let's out some thunder; it's a harbinger of the weather we're likely to see in the Sierras.
This is the last reliable water until the road to Tehachapi or Mojave in either 17 or 25 miles, so we all camel up and fill water bottles. Eventually around 4 pm, people pack up and leave singly or in small groups. I don't leave until 6, but the light is beautiful and it's not too hot for hiking now. The trail rounds a few more canyon/ridge combos then switchbacks 1200 feet steeply up onto a bald windy hill top. At dark I find Chatty and Sacagawea and Blue hunkered behind a few junipers and decide to set up here too. We're high enough now that we can see the glow from the LA basin over the low section of the Transverse Range we came out of yesterday, plus all the desert lights winking on and the stars across the overhead some. I'm asleep before the moon can rise.
Birds:
Great Horned Owl
Cactus Wren
Black-throated Sparrow
Common Raven
Mourning Dove
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Northern Mockingbird
Horned Lark
Lesser Nighthawk
Scott's Oriole
House Finch
Rock Wren
Loggerhead Shrike
Western Scrub-jay
American Kestrel
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