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Day 29: highways and valleys

Day 29
Miles: 24
From little Jimmy Spring to sulphur spring

When our alarm goes off at the amazingly early hour of 7am, only one other hiker is left at little Jimmy campground. Apparently early has different definitions for different people. Gizmo and Dirtnap, bringing up the rear again.

The trail today has a lot of decisions. Instead of a long, unbroken, dirt conveyor belt to Canada, the trail has closures, road walks, and too many road crossings to keep track of. The decisions start right away, as J and I look up at another crazy climb up a ridge. Highway 2 sweeps around the ridge and connects back up with trail where it comes careening back down. Uphill is always the answer, so up we go. Nothing like a good haul in the morning to remind you that you did the same thing yesterday.
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Day 28: switchbacks

Day 28
Miles: 14
From Wrightwood to Little Jimmy Spring Camp

I wake up and take another shower. Might as well start off clean for the next section. Don and Yvon feed us breakfast, then Yvon takes us to the store for a new fuel canister and then to the trailhead. Yvon explained last night that get daughter has found surrogate mothers all over the world – so she likes to take care of the children of other people who come their way. These debts and gifts of kindness get passed around in a giant loop all over the world I suppose. My mother likes to take in the children of friends and strangers too. I wonder if it all eventually shakes out even – it seems that those who are better at giving have more room to receive.

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Day 27: Best kind of morning

Day 27
Miles: 7

I wake up and look outside the tarp – it’s the crack of dawn, cracking its way into my little blue home. Behind a screen of pines, the day breaks pink and gold, and J and I watch the sun rise with our heads still on our pillows. “So this is what sunrise looks like!” I exclaim. “It’s beautiful!”
“Who knew?” jokes J. We watch the sunrise snuggled together. The morning fades into normal morning-ness and we go back to sleep. No point in wasting a perfectly cool, lovely morning by being awake.

I’m exhausted. J and I can pull big days, but when we start stacking them in a row it takes us down pretty quick. We only have seven miles to do today – if we’re taking a rest day, why not rest here, on the mountain, in the pines? So we stay.
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Day 26: faultlines and climbs

Day 26
Miles: 19
From a few miles from Cajon Pass to cool views above Wrightwood

I don’t know why I bother setting the alarm. It’s a joke. I turned that sucker off and went back to bed. An hour and a half later and I regret it already – I’m overheated before even crawling out of bed. I can keep a committment to anybody else but myself. I’m always willing to let myself down, turns out.

It takes us an hour to pack up and now it’s really hot. I don’t know who turned up the heat on the sun today, but it was unnecessary. My feet hurt. My hair is in my face. I’m sweaty. I’m hot.
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Day 25: going backwards

Day 25
Miles: 20
From the Mojave Siphon Power Plant to a couple miles past Cajon Pass

J’s Aunt Amy makes us a breakfast of veggie omelets, strawberries and toast. Back to trail food after this… J’s cousin Dan loads us up and whisks us back to the ugly power plant where he picked us up. “Are you sure you don’t to just start back up from Wrightwood?” he asks us, one more time. We’re sure. It seems kind of silly to go backwards just so we can walk back into Wrightwood two days from now, but being committed to walking the entire trail makes all of our other decisions less complicated. “Are we really doing this?” we ask ourselves. Yes. The answer is always yes. Forward-ho.
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Day 24: rest

Miles: zero
Wrightwood

J and I have been relaxing, eating blueberries, and hanging out with adorable three-year-olds. It’s everything I hoped and dreamed. While I have a moment, I thought I’d give a call-out to my favorite pieces of gear so far.

Favorite piece of gear #1:
My rainpants. I thought about leaving these at home – why would I need rainpants in Southern California? They’ve been a super wind layer. They’ve been the one extra piece of clothing when the puffy jacket just isn’t getting the job done. They’re my in-town pants when the rest of my clothes are in the laundry. Worth the weight.
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Day 23: in town early

Day 23
Miles: 7
From our creekside camp to the Mojave Siphon Power Plant (then Wrightwood)

We set two alarms last night – our first for the trip. One was for the middle of the night – there was supposed to be a meteor shower. The other was our wake-up call at the shockingly early hour of 6:30.

When the first alarm went off, J and I squinted through sleep up at the sky. In the minute and a half we could keep our eyes open, we didn’t see a single meteor. What kind of meteor shower is this??

The second alarm is going off now – what a terrible way to wake up. I’d usually rather get a late start, but we’re meeting J’s cousin on the side of the road at ten and we still have some miles to do.
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Day 22: naps and a show

Day 22
Miles: 8
From Deep Creek to 8 miles from Deep Creek

Hot spring soak in the morning, what a life. Most of the thru-hikers are on the trail before I’ve even had breakfast, but Sylvia and Billy have the same plans as us: rest day at deep creek.

It’s warm and sunny, which means J can dry out his stuff. I managed to keep my clothes and bag dry yesterday, but J didn’t. He tucked his plastic trash bag around his stuff instead of putting his stuff inside – looks like I won’t be adopting his method.
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Day 21: it all ends at the hot tub

Day 21
Miles: 22.5
From holcombe creek to deep creek hot springs

In Ray Jardine’s book on tarp camping, he harps endlessly on how ventilation is the point of a tarp. Supposedly, this is to prevent condensation inside your tent. I’ve had a sneaking feeling that maybe Ray’s wife just got tired of being hotboxed with rehydrated bean farts.

Last night, though, J and I chose not to follow Ray’s instructions on keeping the tarp ventilated, and we closed off both of the tarp’s open ends, one end with the insert (the batwing), and the other with our umbrellas. We were so cold. I woke up in the middle of the night with condensation raining down on me. Whoops. Should have gone with the ventilation after all. It got cold enough that the condensation froze for a while – it was a chilly night.
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Day 20: keep walking

Day 20
Miles 19.5
From Big Bear to Holcombe creek
May 21, 2014

When J and I made it to breakfast at 7am we were the last up. Papa Smurf had already made eggs and sausage, biscuits, gravy, and potatoes. Everyone was eating companionably while the dogs looked hopeful.

No one else was heading out in the morning so Papa Smurf dropped just the two of us back at the trail. Before we left he asked if he could leave us with a prayer. “Of course,” I reply. After his blessing on our journey he bids us off. He puts his hand out to shake but I hug him instead. I find it almost strange, to find someone so generous. It’s like when someone is too happy – you try and figure what’s really behind it. I wonder again what it is about tired, dirty thru-hikers that inspires his concern. We’re so often wrapped up in our own stories, our sufferings, or happinesses, this saga we are building for ourselves. Life goes on without us.
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