Tehachipi, CA

Whew, this has been one crazy section.

Aloe and I have been hiking hard since our rest in Hiker Heaven. There has been a lot of elevation gain and loss and we are pretty exhausted after the last 100 miles.

A trail angel gave us a ride to Sam's Club from Hiker Heaven where we resupplied for cheap. L-rod, who runs HH, let us borrow bear canisters for free, which are required for the next section. That was nice, saves us about $170. We got a ride out to the trail and did 11 miles the first evening to a water cache. Next day we hiked to another cache, "Hiker Oasis," which consisted of lawn chairs and a cooler full of water, soda and beer! We stayed probably longer than we should but ended up doing about 22 miles that day anyways to the "Red Carpet" water cache.

We were determined to catch up with Miles, Hatman and Happyfeet who left HH about half a day before we did, so we busted out the next few days with a 23 and 22 miler. The weather has been nice, locals told us it is not uncommon for 100+ degree weather, but we have been blessed with clouds, and even a little rain!

We caught up with M, H and H at Hikertown, a hostel near Lancaster, but they took off when we got there while we rested up for a bit. Then we walked along the LA Aqueduct for 16 miles (the most boring section of trail so far) for a total 26 mile day. We camped at a water tank where MHH were staying at too.

We slept in the next day and busted out a 24 miler to get to the road where we were hitching to Tehachipi. We got there late and decided to camp out and hitch the next day.

The next morning we slept in again (6am) and walked to the road for a hitch. We were a little worried since it was a very quiet road, but Aloe stuck out her thumb and a truck pulled over right away. He drove us all the way to Mama Hillybeans coffee shop (super hiker-friendly) and we are chillin here, drinking coffee and trying to plan out our day.

Jana twisted her bad knee (ACL surgery 5 years ago) a few days ago and so we are going to take an unscheduled zero in town here. We are trying to figure out where we are going to stay here so she can take it easy.

Only 140 miles to Kennedy Meadows! This is our last desert section which includes the Mojave. Hopefully this cool weather will persist. We can't wait to get out of the desert and into the mountians.

We'll post more pictures in Kennedy.

Love,

Aloe and Splinter