Goodbye Tehachapi, hello remoteness

Day 37

Today I was going back to the trail for four days into the driest and hitherto most remote section of the trail. To my luck a bus was driving more or less directly from my hotel to the freeway where I got off trail since it was now a weekday albeit only a couple of times a day. Foregoing the hotel breakfast and my beauty sleep I decided to aim for the four am bus. At the stop I talked with a young man who was taking the bus to see his child under visitation. He wore a backpack made to look like a turtle shell. He of course asked about the hike. He said that he liked Tehachapi and that he didn’t mind not having a car which is otherwise uncommon in the US. Later a middle aged man wearing a light brown suit and sporting a sharp haircut. He and the younger man obviously knew each other from taking the bus. The latter asked the former if he would ever walk the PCT to which he answered he’d only do it if there were golf courses along the way(!). I am unsure if he meant that as a joke or simply knew little about the nature of trough hiking. When he was younger and in the navy he had actually been to Denmark in the small town of Oxbøl for a NATO training camp. He thought that Denmark was a very clean country nearly devoid of litter and Lego was the only product he knew of from Denmark.

The first part of the trail after getting off the bus followed the highway fenced off with barbed wire into which several tumble weeds had gotten stuck. After that there was a long ascent which brought me into the unusually strong wind, probably the strongest I’ve experienced on trail before. All the nearby wind mills were spinning rapidly and it was quite chilly in contrast to the heat that I had anticipated. The rest of the hike today was mostly uneventful. There was a section near the end which had been reported to have poodle dog bush, and which I was anxious. However it turned out to be a non problem. After 27 miles I set up camp somewhat out of the wind and next to a bunch of other hikers. I was feeling quite tired after getting up so early, but it felt good to be back, though.