Day 28 June 3, 2017

• Daily mileage 19
• Total miles 512
• Hiked from 4:30 am to 2:00 pm

(Sorry for the crappy afternoon video. I forgot I had zoomed in for a photo prior to starting the video)

This post is best enjoyed whilst humming "I have walked 500 miles" by the Proclaimers.

I got up very early this morning with the express thought of beating the heat on the 19 mile hike to Hikertown.  I hiked with my headlamp on for the first time for about 30 minutes until the dawn became bright enough.  But with dawn came the bugs once again.  I actually had to put on my mosquito headnet for a few hours just so as to be able to enjoy the hike.  Got some water out of what is called a guzzler.  Basically, it is an underground rain water collection structure that you lower a scoop into on a rope and pull up water.  It would have been a long, waterless stretch without the guzzler.

Lizard asleep on the side of the trail      

Early morning in the desert

Guzzler 

After a few miles, I came to the 500 mile mark!  Yeah.  I know it is just a number, but it seems quite stupendous to be able to say that I have now walked a continuous 500 miles in the SoCal desert.    

 

500 miles 

I had mentioned yesterday that I got my first blisters on my feet yesterday.  Well today they were terrible.  I think that what has happened is that my feet have grown, which apparently is very common on this trail, and I am still wearing the same shoes I started with, which are now way too small.

Anyway, I carried on into the ever warming morning, eventually dropping down into the Antelope Valley which is part of the Mojave Desert.  My ultimate destination was a trail side collection of buildings named Hikertown.  Hikertown is very hard to explain.  It certainly was a welcome refugee from the mid-day heat (my pack thermometer read 100F in the sun when I arrived at 2:00 pm) but I am still not sure just why it exists.  It is a collection of shacks that have been made to sort of look like an old west town.

Looking down into the heat of the Mojave Desert    

The eclectic Hikertown

There was a huge crowd of hikers all waiting out the afternoon heat there.  The plan for pretty much everyone was to hike out in the early evening and then night hike across the desert floor to the next water source.  But not me.  I got a ride into the nearest town (Lancaster) so I could get new shoes.  Hopefully they will cure the blistering issue.  Thanks once again to Phil and Tory for the ride to town.  They dropped me off at a sporting goods store and within 15 minutes I was disposing of my old smelly shoes and relishing in the feeling of proper fitting ones.  I am now wearing size 13's vs the 11 1/2's I was in previously.

Now I am sitting in a hotel room (with lovely air conditioning) wondering how to get back to the trail.  Oh well, something always comes along.