When we stopped for a drink break and our third breakfast around 10:30am we met two female hikers, one from New Zealand and the other from New York.
It was a loose sandy trail again, which on such terrain requires a lot of effort climbing uphill, the kind that’s a real calf burner and not what you want when carrying full water!Īs we climbed higher in elevation, we could still see the ‘High Desert’ of the Mojave sprawling into the distance. Today when we left camp, we had an immediate uphill climb for the first 4 miles taking us to top of Skinner Peak. We have learned that up close however, it’s amazing and filled with life!īut we weren’t out of the desert just yet. That’s what really sticks out for us over the past several weeks – the amount of flowers covering the ground and the palette of colour they inject into the desert landscape that from afar looks so barren and desolate.
That being said, the desert has been spectacular and nothing at all like we expected the landscape and flora to be! One minute you can be standing in the midst of Joshua trees and Beaver Tail cactus, then after climbing a thousand feet you can be wandering through shady pine forest with bright purple lupins and wild yellow sunflowers lining the trail. With just 52 miles to go we should reach Kennedy Meadows, the gateway to the Sierra Nevada, on Friday, where water should be flowing freely and we can enjoy a change of scenery. This last week has been a long, hot, dry stint with up to twenty miles each day to cover between water caches, so we’re now very much looking forward to finally waving farewell to the desert.
It’s been a mammoth fifty days on the trail already and having walked 650 miles north from the Mexican border, (actually longer than the entire length of England from north to south), we are continuing to make our way through the state of California and are still hiking in what is considered to be the ‘desert segment’ of the PCT! (But thankfully not for much longer!) Reaching a significant milestone on the PCT… 700 miles done and we can finally wave farewell to the desert! Day 50 – Tuesday 29th May 2018, Wild Camp at Bird Spring Pass, Mile 631 to Walker Pass Trailhead Campground, Mile 651, 20 miles
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