Before I begin, two very important announcements:
1) My trail name has officially Changed to Dimples. This actually happened all the way back in Idyllwild, but I completely forgot to mention it haha.
2) I would like to mention and thank my mom's personal trainer, Cyril Ojongtambia, for helping me prepare for this trip! Without him, I would have probably died by now or at the very least broken in half from the weight of my pack. If anyone living near the Houston, TX area is looking for a personal trainer, he's your man! E-mail him at
cyro425@gmail.com if you're interested / have any questions. You won't be disappointed!
And now back to the trail!
Two closures and three trail-angel-stops later we've arrived in Tehachapi!
Back in Wrightwood we ended up spending another night at Amy & Brian's place where we cooked them Snake Eye's Specialty Indian-Style dish. It was epic! The next morning we said our goodbyes and decided to not worry about the short section of trail we missed and go ahead and begin our hike at Inspiration Point, where you can see all the way to the Island of Catalina! That day was extremely pleasant and we climbed our first official mountain peak, Mount Baden-Powell at 9399 feet!
Shortly there-after we hiked through some more very pleasant areas followed by some pretty brutal sections covered in Poodle-Dog Bush (also known as Poison Ivy on Steroids). And so naturally, I sat directly in some. I immediately stripped off my shirt and head bandana though and just hiked through the desert in my sports bra, and was fine short of some minor sunburn. But still, the wait to see if I would react (up to two days later) was a bit scary. Luckily a couple hours later we made it to the next water-stop: a fire-station. And more trail magic happened! We found out that the next section of trail was closed due to over-grown Poodle-dog Bush (I was like, Nah really?...haha) and there were these two awesome trail angels shuttling people to the next town, Acton. So we basically went from HOLY COW IM DYING OF POODLEDOG to Oh Sweet, A Swimming Pool! We spent the night in the campsite gazebo with a bunch of other hikers who are now turning out to be steady friends. I hope they stick around.
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| CP, Cat-Stealins, Avacado, Short-Rib, Sarah, Kimchi |
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| Trail Angels Tess and Teal |
From the gazebo we only had 10 more miles to our next stop (how sweet is that?!) So we hiked half a day to the next town, Agua Dulce, where the lovely Saufley's live. The Saufley's have a very well-known reputation for being awesome (and with good-cause) they had an entire guest-house open for the hikers with a kitchen, shower, bathroom, TV and more. And then they had cots set up all around their giant back-yard for us to sleep on. They even provided bikes for us to ride into town on! My favorite part, however, was the grilled-cheese contest where all the hikers got to vote on which recipe was their favorite. They also drove some of us into town to go shopping at the REI there, so all-in all it was pretty sweet. Oh! And I got a hair cut which was very fun entertainment for about 10 of the hikers and a group effort of four people. Thanks Sarah, Short-Rib, Cat-Stealins and Gizmo!
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| Hiker Buddy Rogue |
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| No Shade! |
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| Snake Eyes, Rogue, Teal&Tess, Two of Emma's friends, Emma, Handy Andy |
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| Short Rib, Cat-Stealins, Sarah, Avocado, CP, Kimchi (up front) |
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| My Trail Hair-cut! (from its best angle haha) |
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| ??, Gizmo, Blues Man |
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| Me & Cat Stealins |
The next stretch was, once again, very short. So we only had to hike about 3 days before we reached the Anderson's (another well-known hiker stop). This place was extremely chill and they served us nachos at night and cinnamon pancakes in the morning. They even had a Frisbee-golf coarse setup in their backyard along with a hammock, lots of couches and a rope swing! The most exciting part was probably the fact they had a paint station where you could paint any rock you found laying around, what more could one want?
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| A random house we passed on our walk to the Anderson's |
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| Dr. Extreme posing next to the epic toilet flower pot. So much win. (and yes, he is wearing shorts under that) |
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| Kimchi soakin her feet in a bucket and drinkin beer |
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| Little Ripper, Hippo&Thirsty, Dr. Extreme, Was |
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| Avocado & Sarah rockin on the hammock |
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| Cat Stealins chillin with her morning brew |
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| My art skills at play haha |
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| Rocco Shun's awesome van |
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| Crash Test, Sarah, Cat Stealins, Me |
After that there was yet another large trail foreclosure, so Rocco Shun gave us a lift in his epic van to the next stop-point: Hiker Town. This place ended up being really, Really creepy. It felt like a ghost town and wasn't well taken care of at all. Its only redeeming factor was there were puppies. Luckily we didn't have to stay there because our plan was to night-hike out. So we pretty much filled up on water, picked up my package (Thanks Aunt Sherri and Uncle David!!!) and then hit the trail. And it was a good thing we did, the next stretch of trail was completely flat, sandy desert with no water or shade. We literally followed the aquaduct road for about 20 miles. But we got to see a Kangaroo rat and a Mojave Green Rattlesnake (the most deadly kind)!!! However, we also had a very interesting run in with a drunk guy who came driving up the old abandoned aquaduct road at about 12:30 AM. Luckily he did not run over us or kidnap us, but he did scare the bageebers out of us. We then got to walk through a windmill farm (those things are crazy close-up!) and even met up with some more friends who became our 'desert posse', as we called ourselves.
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| Our Deser Posse: Little Ripper, Snake Eyes, The Don, and G-Rad |
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| Takin a siesta under the bridge aka The Only Shade |
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Sarah with a puppy, adorable!
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Then, finally, we made it Tehachapi. This place seems really cool. Right now we are sleeping at the airport ( a very small private-plane airport with a small park) which the owner has graciously opened up to all hikers for only $5 a night, what a deal!
