Day 31

Day 31, 24 miles, endpoint PCT mile 562

We left the wind turbines and immediately headed up into the hills. The first half of the day was a steady uphill with views looking down over wind farms and flat, brown valleys. It was cool and partly cloudy most of the day.

At mile 549, at about the top of the climb at 6,200 feet, was a water cache with water, chairs, and a nail clipper. After the cache it was mostly down along the backsides of the hills. We wound our way through a burn zone and suddenly came across another identical wind farm, stretching as far off into the distance as we could see. The trail dropped us down into gusty Tehachipi Pass, where wind turbines are big business, as they power all of greater Los Angeles.

We pushed on, wanting to get some more miles in and make our trip to Mojave tomorrow as easy as possible. We wandered through four more miles of wind turbines, walking under and next to giant, cranking propellers. We had no choice but to camp right next to them, and for the second night in a row their rythmic churning sounds will (hopefully) put me to sleep. We only have four more miles to the highway into Mojave, where the luxurious Motel 6 awaits!

Joshua Tree at sunrise.

Sunrise trial view... Steve from Utah sleeping in the middle of the field.

Carla from camp.

Headed into the wind.

Great clouds today.

Heading down and out of the wind.

Joshua Trees.

Josh setting up for sunset.

Wind turbines at sunset.

More wind turbines at sunset.  Pretty much impossible to take a picture without one in the frame.