2013-05-13 - Day 5 Twentynine Palms

5/13/2013
Miles: 00

10:30 AM
Twentynine Palms, CA

It is nice to be lounging around home although I am missing the trail life a bit. I will get plenty of it after I meet Dan in Big Bear. After his break here tomorrow night and possibly Wednesday, I will deliver him back to the trail at I-10 near Cabezon and come back here. It will take him 3 days to get to Big Bear (unless he decides to speed it up an start doing 30 mile days). If it goes per plan we will be out beyond Big Bear about 3 weeks with no possibility of coming here for more breaks. I will be living in my tent in campgrounds of various quality most of the time, probably most without shower facilities. We may take a night in a motel at Mojave or Tehachappi. I better enjoy the luxuries of trailer living while I can.

A word about skipping hunks of trail. Neither of us feel too badly about some skipping because this is the 6th time Dan has hiked the far south portion of the trail:

2005 Border to Walker Pass, Highway 178, near Onyx, CA
2007 Border to Echo Summit, Lake Tahoe, CA
2009 Border to Canadian Border
2010 Border to Highway 74, Anza, CA (knee issue), Ashland, OR to Sierra City, CA
2011 Border to Big Bear, CA
2012 Border to ???

He may skip another section in or around the San Gabriel Mountains. His interest is to use as much of the available month hiking through the Sierras. His plan is to go from Kennedy Meadows South (KM, west of Ridgecrest) to Onion Valley (Independence, 90 miles from KM) or Mammoth Lakes (200 miles from KM), depending on time and snow conditions. Hikers usually do not enter the Sierra until mid-June but this is a light snow year and he feels that it may be possible to make it to Mammoth Lakes earlier. I cannot help him much in that area. I can meet him at Horseshoe Meadow about 60 miles from KM and Onion Valley. Horseshoe Meadow is the bail out point if the snow is too bad. Beyond Onion Valley he is on his own for 110 miles and 7 high passes including Kearsarge Pass between the trailhead at Onion Valley and the PCT, all 11K feet or higher.

As an aside, for those who may be interested the PCT is visible on Google Maps. The trick is to find the zoom level where it is labeled. It labeled at the 4 highest magnification levels (at least for me). It is easy to see near the border at Campo (paralleling Forrest Gate Road on the west side). The spot where I left Dan last evening is on Highway 74 1 mile east of the Highway 371/74 junction near Anza, CA.

It is already 95 degrees here this morning so Dan will have a warm hike today even though he will be in the 5-8K elevation range. It is to drop a few degrees tomorrow but the 10 day forecast does not offer him much relief. I hope he is managing his water supply judiciously.