Trail Day 40: Walker Pass Campground (mile 651.3) to tentsite (mile 672.2)

20.9 PCT miles

I didn't get off to a great start this morning as I woke up over an hour and a half later than when I had set my alarm for. I checked my phone and both the alarm had been set and there was no “missed alarm” message. I must have turned it off and fallen asleep again.

As a result, I didn't get back to Walker Pass Campground until 8 am, which is pretty late start for desert hiking. Plus, I had a large desert hill to climb within the first mile. It was my fault for sleeping through my alarm, so I was just going to have to deal with it.

I walked to 0.8 miles to Walker Pass (where it crosses the freeway and signed the register before starting uphill. While I didn't see anyone on the trail, there was a long list of people who already passed by there this morning and signed the register.

Going up.

As I started hiking up I noticed two day hikers behind me. I have come to be irrationally irritated by day hikers. Maybe it is because they are clean. Or, perhaps it is because they are not carrying heavy packs. These two day hiking women were dressed in fashionable work out clothes so I kind of assumed they would judge me for my thru-hiking attire. I'm sure, in reality, they were probably pretty nice, but it that didn't stop me from being jealous of their fashion sense and access to showers and beds at the end of the day.

As I am a slow uphill hiker, especially with a pack fully weighted down with food and water, so I kept waiting for them to pass me, but it never happened.  I actually put some distance on them. Good thing too, because I had to pee. I was really mortified about the idea of some fashionable day hikers catching a glimpse of me squatting in the bushes.

During my climb, I had a pretty good morning with wildlife spotting. I saw a striped racer (snake) and a collared lizard. I am constantly surrounded by lizards, but I keep seeing the usual suspects: side-blotched lizards, fence lizards, whiptails, and the occasional desert spiny lizard. This is the first collared lizard I have seen, and I consider myself lucky to have seen it. Their geographic range only overlaps the PCT in this small section of the desert.

Striped racer.

Collared lizard.

The mountains I was walking through appeared to be changing. While they were still desert mountains, both hot and full of sun exposure, I started to see more dramatic rock formations. Hopefully that means the "real" Sierra is close.

The valley to the east.

This is different.

Changing scenery.

As I got near my first water source, a seasonal stream, I saw a pine tree with a nice, flat, shaded spot and decided to lounge there for lunch. From the small grove of pine trees, I was able to look up and see granite rock formations. It made me happy because, if I didn't look around too much, it gave the impression that I was out of the desert. Can you tell that I really want to finally transition out of the desert?  After lunch I walked a quarter mile to the seasonal stream to fill up with water.

Lunchtime views.

Almost immediately after the stream, I saw Joshua trees again. There was a nearby spring, aptly named Joshua Tree Spring that I would have had to fill up at had the seasonal stream not been running. Joshua Tree Spring comes with a warning. It has been tested and has "unsafe levels" of uranium. The water report clarifies what this means. These levels are unsafe for consumption if all the water you drink in your lifetime comes from that source. Apparently much of the water in the Sierra has traces of uranium. Some of the sources, like Joshua Tree Spring, are regularly tested. Many are not. I was able to get water from the stream this time, but chances are pretty good I will be consuming uranium along this section. I haven't heard of it affecting PCT hikers from past years, so hopefully it will be in negligible amounts.

The aptly named Joshua Tree Spring.

Warning.

Joshua tree dominated landscape = HOT.

Past Joshua Tree Spring I started bumping into other hikers, some section hikers, some thru-hikers. They were all crouched in whatever shaded spot they could find. It was admittedly hot out, and there wasn't a lot of vegetation to absorb the heat. I felt surprisingly OK in the heat. It wasn't fun, but I didn't need to crawl into a bush either. My body has definitely adjusted to the conditions. While talking to some section hikers who were crouched behind a bush I remembered my second day on the trail where I stopped hiking in the early afternoon, cutting 7-8 miles off what I had planned to do that day, because of the heat. I have come a long way.

Another interesting thing I saw during this hot desert stretch was a kangaroo rat. These guys look like fluffy mice and have big hind legs that they hop on like a kangaroo. I had heard of these guys before, but I'm not sure I realized that they were in the local deserts. By the time I realized what it was, it had hopped away. I didn't get a picture, but here is a Youtube link:

Eventually I made it to another water source, and some shade. This is where I found the other hikers from the trail register this morning. They all had their sleeping pads out and were napping in the shade. I chatted with them for a bit (one of the guys had the same butterfly print gaitors as I did) and went to the tributary to Spanish Needle Creek to fill up my water. I filled up quite a bit since it was still hot out and I was ending the day with an uphill climb for a couple hours. I also needed at least two cups of water to make my dinner and a half a liter to mix my electrolyte drink.

I struggled with the uphill climb at the end of the day. Eventually I was passed by all the other hikers who had been napping in the shade. This was potentially problematic since, when I talked to them, it seemed like we were all headed the same amount of miles today and there weren't many tentsites listed in Guthook. I hoped I would see a spot or two that was not listed in Guthook, since I would be getting to those camping spots last.

Going up (again.)

I decided to try to distract myself from how tired and hot I was by trying out the portable satellite radio I had gotten a while back to listen to the Bulls and the Blackhawks playoff games. Seeing as they both went out in the first round, I hadn't really felt the urgency to get it up and running. Tonight I tuned in to the NHL Stanley Cup Finals between the Penguins and the Predators. It was both a nice distraction and a torturous one. Ice hockey may not be the best thing to listen to when you are hot and thirsty. During the game they kept talking about ice, ice crews, and icing (the rule). There were also repetitive commercials talking about Icy Beer, the official beer of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and a frozen treat called Frozen Hot Chocolate, which was described as an avalanche of chocolate.

Towards the end of the hockey game I found what I was looking for. Just past one of the corners of the switchbacks I saw a flat tent space that was perched on an overlook of the valley below. As I took the small path down to it, I saw that there was another single tent spot above it, like a tier. I set my camp up on the top tier and made dinner as I watched the sunset.

View of the mountains from my tentsite.