Deserts & Black Bears, & Wind (Oh My!)

Another 110 miles north this week, from Agua Dulce to Tehachapi. Three PCT firsts this past week: 1. A water-carry across the Mojave Desert. 2. A bear sighting. 3. Fifty knot winds.

Our six-ounce carbon fiber “Hatbrellas” as we hike 17-miles across the Mojave Desert. (Photo by Kathy from Bend.)

Last Friday (4/7/23), Greg Long— a colleague from Creative Wonders/Learning Company/Mattel— drove us north, from Palm Springs to Agua Dulce. Greg enabled us to skip 300 miles of very snowy mountains— San Jacinto, San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains— which we’ll return to later.

We’re in Tehachapi now, taking a zero day in a gorgeous Airbnb. In the past week we hiked north through 112 miles of relatively snow-free trail.

The trail ranged from 3,000 to 6,500 feet, passing Green Valley and Burnt Peak, then crossed the Mojave desert to climb through the wind farms of Antelope Valley into Tehachapi. The temperature range was thirty to eighty degrees and we’ve now hiked 263 miles, total, since March 25th.

Here’s the visual summary of our past week:

Our First Bear

On Day two, near Bouquet Reservoir, I was following Kristen as we turned a corner and she suddenly stopped short. About thirty yards ahead, drinking at a stream, was a black bear.

We were both a little flustered as we hadn’t expected bears in the desert. The coaching is to look big and make noise so we raised our arms and sang the most ridiculous version of “Hey Lawdy Lawdy”:

I know a bear his name is Smokey

Hey Lawdy Lawdy Lawdy

When he walks he sure is Pokey

Hey Lawdy Lawdy Low

What was ridiculous is neither of us can sing and that Kristen chose to sing a Biddle family campfire song in order to make noise and give the appearance of calm. We slowly backed up and after a couple of minutes the bear ambled up the hill above the trail and we continued our hike. In a shocking signal that Superwoman has a weakness, Kristen asked me to go first— a rare opportunity for Pudding to play the tough guy.

We know it’s a black bear because brown bears (Grizzlies)— the much more dangerous bears—don’t inhabit California or the Pacific Northwest. The main danger of black bears is surprising a mother when she’s protecting her cubs — the reason we occasionally sing in populated bear areas—or bears that learn to raid hikers’ unattended backpacks to feast on the culinary goodness of freeze-dried food. That’s why bear boxes (think large plastic jars with “childproof” tops) are required in Yosemite and Lassen National Park and why we often hang our food bags in trees at night. (“OMG I put the rope for hanging the food bag in the bounce box” swirled through my brain as I stared at the bear.)

On the long list of things we fear— topped by very dangerous water crossings in the High Sierras (there will be lots of melting snow runoff), bears are pretty close to the bottom of the list. But we’re still afraid of them— we didn’t have the presence of mind to snap a photo. Sorry.

Our First Water Carry Across the Mojave

On Monday (4/10) Kristen and I stayed at HikerTown. If you were driving a car you would NEVER stop at this abandoned movie set (one central bathroom, no power in the one room cabins) but if you’re hiking the $5 propane shower is LUXURY. And for ten bucks you can send your resupply food box here, which we did.

Here’s a photo of our room, The Bank, with its plastic machine guns on the wall. Kristen and I did our best to embody the spirit of Bonnie and Clyde as we slept here:

On Tuesday morning, at 7 a.m., we began our 17-mile hike across the Mojave Desert. The hike parallels the LA aqueduct, but ironically, there’s no available drinking water.

This Tuesday morning, like all mornings after a food re-supply, is hard for me as I carry all the food. And today’s food bag has cheese, apples, cucumbers, salami, and tomatoes PLUS Kristen’s homemade German seeded rye bread. My very biased estimate is that this four-day foodbag — intended to get us all the way to Tehachapi— weighs ten pounds.

It gets worse. Fellow hikers suggest we carry about three liters of water each across the desert, which means I carry four liters and Kristen carries two.

By my math I’m carrying about twenty pounds of “base weight” plus ten pounds of food, plus 8.8 pounds of water, bringing my total weight close to forty pounds. Ultra light hikers will roll their eyes in disgust.

At mile one I begin to “panic drink.” I’d rather drink the water than carry it and by noon my pee is suspiciously clear, kicking off my hypochondriac tendencies. Too much water, not enough salt, leads to hyponatremia, and eventual seizures. So now I’m binge-munching salty snacks. Plus I’d rather eat the food then carry the food.

Even worse for me, but a wonderful example of Trail Magic: LA Water Department Trucks drive along the aqueduct, handing out 16 ounce water bottles to passing hikers. We each accept an additional liter of water, and the panic drinking resumes. (My pee, through my sunglass lens, looks clear and I’m now afraid I will be the first hiker to die of over hydration in the desert.) But you should never say “no” to water in the desert, right? And you can’t pour water out in the desert, true?

This trip I’ve done five heavy re-supply days and I do my best not to whine. “Man up, Pudding!” I say to myself. But as we hike the last uphill grade into camp, seven hours later, Kristen says to me, “You shouldn’t bend at the waist— it’s bad for your back,” I break. “I’m carrying a fricking forty-pound backpack, full of cucumbers.”

We’ve been married for thirty-one years and I’m highly confident we’ll make it to 32 (on the trail on September 14th!). But there’s some back and forth bickering on how I carried too much water, my belief that cucumbers are “NOT worth the weight,” Kristen’s suggestion that I should “think of cucumbers and apples as water replacement — and carry less water,” followed by her last suggestion that “maybe your pack needs adjustment.” I did my best to nicely shut the downward spiral down by saying, “I am no longer accepting feedback.”

After filtering water from a fast-running creek, Kristen, a new trail buddy, Trailhead, and I sat in the shade of an LA water shed, enjoying the view and the “Whoosh Whoosh” of fast-turning wind turbines.

As the air begins to cool, we eat fresh grapes. They’re worth the weight.

50 Knot Winds!

There are about 500 two hundred-foot-tall wind turbines on the plains below Tehachapi. The desert heat of the Mojave Desert creates a low-pressure system (hot air rises) and sucks in cool mountain air from the north. More, the mountain valleys create a “pinch point” and the Bernoulli/Venturi effect accelerates the breeze.

On our last night and day, traversing these peaks, we had occasional fifty-knot gusts. The force of the wind inspires drunken lurching and blows us into the hill. (We’re protected on the leeward side so you can’t get blown off the mountain.)

But in the evening the wind abates. At mile 549 we’re treated to a little trail magic: a water cache, chairs, and an outdoor kitchen setup. Kristen used the last of our “heavy food” to prepare a charcuterie board. Here’s Kristen with TrailHead at “Cafe 549”:

The charcuterie board was yummy— worth the weight.

What’s next?

On Saturday morning we hike north for six days to Walker’s Pass. We’ve formed a “tramily” with TrailHead, Cap, Luke and Lucy. We’ll carry micro-spikes for our hiking shoes as there will be a few miles of snow along the way. Kristen’s anxious about snow on side hills, so she’ll likely carry an ice axe, too. (She has more fear of exposure than I.)

We’ll get above 7,000 feet for the first time and the temps are still a cool thirty to fifty degrees. In typical years hikers worry about heat and water supply in this 90-mile section. This year we worry about cold and snow.

On the 20th, our nephew, Bryden, will pick us up at Walker’s Pass and drive us south to Palm Springs. We hope that by then enough snow will have melted to make the even higher 9,000 foot Southern California mountains navigable.

It will be a six-day carry so there will be NO CUCUMBERS and Kristen and I continue to send non-essential items to ourselves via our bounce box. (I am giving up my one pound chair for a week to see what it feels like.) We continue to make the transition from fully-outfitted backpackers to lighter, faster thru-hikers.

Northward!

Pudding & KarMMa

(Gib and Kristen)

PS. Past PCT essays:

March 25, 2023: “Day One: Introducing our PCT hike”

March 26, 2023: “The Fears We Carry”

April 1, 2023: “Our First 100 Miles!”

April 7, 2023: “A Day In the Life”

April 15, 2023: “Deserts & Bears & Wind (Oh My!)”

April 22, 2023: “Luxury Light Thru Hiking”

May 4, 2023: “Demystifying the PCT”