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| Team Tingo (Haggis, left,and Running Commentary, middle) crossed the Mojave floor along the aqueduct with us. |
Not a good day. Didn't sleep till 2am on account of the dog whimpering all night, which was followed by the 60mph winds beating on the rickety garage doo0, and culminated with a 5 am wakeup from several roosters crowing just outside the garage. We quickly scooted out, not wanting to encounter anybody who we'd have to lie to and say we had a great time. I had a good coffee and eventually got to a good pace, but an impending bathroom emergency forced me into the desert. Afterwards, the strong wind blew my dirty toilet paper over the desert, which I noticed as I was backfilling the cathole. What I failed to notice while my attention was diverted was that sandy, mostly liquid shit was actually squishing out of the cathole and onto my shoe as I compacted the material and tried to keep track of the mess blowing across the desert floor. Bummer. After a protracted and disgruntled cleaning effort I was back underway. We walked along the aqueduct for some time, and then I developed quite a hot case of chafe, no thanks to my aqueous dung. Smiles' improperly-sized shoes were killing her, to boot, so I tried some shoe surgery on the offending footwear. The rather-curious shoes were supposed to be one full size larger than the ones she got rid of at Hiker Heaven, however they fit much smaller across the forefoot. I cut out most of the forefoot and especially on the sides to give some room. The sole positive development of the day, my left calf no longer hurt. However, the pain just jumped legs to my right calf about 8 miles into the day. The strong tailwind propelled us eastbound on the north rim of the desert floor with ease. With enough naproxen and ibuprofen we made it to our lunch stop at the 17th mile, where we had a pesto tortellini lunch and a brief nap. Easily the best part of the day. After lunch we tried to make as many miles as possible, but fatigue from the lack of sleep grated on us past mile 20. The chafe returned and as I bent over to powder myself, my phone dropped and the otterbox screen broke. We hiked through a truly desolate windswept wind farm, where I saw exactly 8 birds, zero lizards, and not even any ants.
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| A most reassuring sign. |
On the ridges of the wind farm I estimated the wind speed at a steady 50 mph. Small wonder they put several million dollars worth of turbines here... the wind was strong enough that, when suspended from a wrist alone, one's trekking pole would be blown back at a 60-degree angle from vertical. It The wind has all the demotivating power of a hill but without any sense of accomplishment. Trudging into the wind required all the power from legs and arms we could muster, while walking across the wind required balance and poise with the trekking poles to avoid getting blown over. We got to the slightly less windy creek in Tylerhorse Canyon, where we made an executive decision to eat, rest and rise early for our approach to Mojave, rather than press on this evening to chip away at the remaining 16 miles. The last straw: finding out I lost the first aid kit, which included ALL blister supplies, in the wind furor. Not going back for it.
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