The desert stretch: mile 702.2

Written 6/18/14

Posted 6/27/14

Today we reached our first big landmark, Kennedy Meadows!  We've spent the last few days making our way through hot, windy, dry terrain. We intentionally cut out a large portion of the desert stretch of the PCT, whittling our stint down to a mere 50 miles or so. Neither of us regret that decision.  It's pretty landscape with expansive views, desert plants like yuccas and Joshua trees, and has it's unique charm, but we couldn't imagine 700 miles of it.  Water sources are normally a big concern through this section, and with California's drought, this is an especially dry year.  You can't bank on every 'reliable' source. There were a few occasions where we had to put in extra miles to find water which meant carrying extra weight but luckily we were prepared for such scarcity!

Another interesting aspect to the desert stretch (due to the dry climate) are the amount of burn areas. Wildfires are common and can create massive burn areas. We passed through several of these in the past couple of days; some of which left the landscape completely bare with dead trees. I find beauty in the stillness but it's very sad to see our human impact on such a large scale.

One of the more interesting things that we came across on the trail was an abandoned village called fox mill springs. It looked like nobody had inhabited the area in several decades. There were rusted out cars and foundations of buildings and delapidated equipment strewn about. It was an odd sight especially since there seemed to be no roads to get to that spot on the hillside.

There were a few inhabitants left. We saw a desert horned lizard (or at least that's what Mike thinks they were...). We almost stepped on a few of these well armoured reptiles because they just sit in the middle of the trail! 

We ended our desert stint today when we came across our first major water source: the Kern River! The water was flowing and it was even deep enough for us to take our first swim! This felt SO good to us I can't even imagine how the other hikers felt after spending an additional month in the desert.

We just walked in to Kennedy Meadows general store where all of the other hikers gave us a standing ovation which was really fun! All hikers get applause when they arrive and it makes you feel really good! We also passed some hikers leaving KM who warned us that this stop can be hard to leave because it's a vortex of luxuries and good people so we're going to try hard not to stay for too long.