Walking Through a Wind Farm

(Wednesday May 7, 2008)
The toughest day followed by the most annoying day.

After walking 15 miles to the nearest water source (while at the same time descending around 4000 feet, which is hard on the knees), I get lost for 15 minutes walking along a road which the trail clearly crosses over and continues Northwest, a fact which I chose to acknowledge via map and then still ignore.

One of the problems with getting lost for 15 minutes on this part of the trail is that it is an area on which a rather large wind farm was built, meaning - you guessed it - it was fucking windy.

Walking through the massive open field between Snow Creek, CA and I-10 is probably the closest thing you'll ever experience to a low grade hurricane, but without the risk of death.

Some of the gusts were so strong that they stood you up and you couldn't move. Very fun when you're trying to walk 4 miles across.

The best part is that because the winds are so strong, there is no actual trail because the wind would just keep shifting the sands and erasing it. So while trying not to get blown over, you have to scan your surroundings and look for the next five foot high post with a PCT marker on it (some of which, of course, have been blown over). Also a very fun task.

(By the way, two dragonflies just landed on a stick in front of me and are now mating...finally some action on this trip!)

Luckily once I crossed under the highway, the wind started to blow at my back, so going up some hills, it literally carried me up. While a welcome change, it also forced me to run on the downhills or fall on my face or off the side of the trail. Yay nature!

So after miles and more miles, I start to get hungry (this is around 5:00) and I start to look for a good campsite. But this being the PCT, there was absolutely no place to camp until 7:00 unless I wanted to take my chances with a steep hill, or sleep directly on the rocky uneven trail.

Luckily I was able to camp at the Whitewater Preserve, which sits along Whitewater Creek around mile 219. It had picnic tables and bathrooms, which was very nice, but because there is such an abundance of water unlike everywhere else in the desert, they also have sprinklers to water the grass and trees.

So wouldn't you know I wake up to find my sleeping bag covered in little beads of water, which had soaked into the down feathers of my bag. Also my shirt, which had been hanging in a tree, fell off the branch and was a soaking mess when I went to put it on. Yay abundance of water!

Earlier today, Squatch, a guy who makes PCT documentaries stopped and chatted with me and asked if I had anything interesting to say for an interview. My response: "Eh...I got nothing."