Today I woke up for the longest day of the year. In the hiking community this is known as “Hike Naked Day”. I decided I wasn’t all that interested in participating, considering the heat and the bright sun - full body sunburn just sounds unpleasant. Then again, its better than doing it on a snowfield in the sun. I probably would’ve considered it in a group, but hiking solo takes part of the fun out of it. Eight miles in to the day, I ran into Warner Springs Monty and Lake to Lake. A month ago at Cabazon, Kay had mentioned she had taken over trail angel duties there for Lake to Lake, so we chatted a bit about this mutual acquaintance. It turns out I had just missed some more trail magic at Walker Pass two nights ago where Monty was cooking for all of the hikers. They were both hiking without shirts in honor of the solstice. They gave me a heads up about a few guys who were only a few miles ahead, so as we parted I was confident I’d run into a couple more thru’s today.
I decided to skip on Joshua Tree Spring because of a warning about uranium in the water. Well, I later found out that California requirements for that mean almost any source out here would get that label if tested. Therefore, most sources are simply labelled “Not tested,” and I drank from those without any concerns. Right after this, I made a fairly significant mistake. I took a quick look at the elevation of the current spring and the next water source, and there was a 300 ft elevation difference. Well, I should’ve taken a closer look at the topo, because in between there was a 1200 ft climb over an exposed ridge. Despite being only a 6 mile hike, this was punishing, and I was sucking down water faster than expected. By the time I came up to Spanish Needle Creek, I was feeling some mild heat exhaustion, and decided to take a nap in the shade. Two hours later, I woke up, got some more water, and pushed on towards dinner. This was a neat part of the hike, where you hike into a closed valley, and realize the only way out is up. My legs were a bit worn out due to the heat, so I wasn’t able to push as hard as I had wanted. With only 48 miles to Kennedy Meadows as of this morning, I wanted to make it a two day trip. Well, today wasn’t a great start, but I was tired enough as night fell that I decided to camp at the top of the climb, then make an early start and push hard to get there before 5:00 when the store closed.
Miles Today: 20
Trip Mileage: 674
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