Miles today: 8.9

Trail miles: 526.5

Elevation: 2800

Spinning on the turntable: Katy Perry: Teenage Dream

Today was split into two sections; a morning hike of about ten miles and a evening hike of about nine miles. It’s too hot to try to tackle the whole section in one hike during the middle of the day. Many of the hikers are waiting at Hiker town until 6 or 7pm and then starting the hike after the temperature decreases. We decided to put the van to use and split the day into more manageable chunks. (What’s the value of having the van as an asset if we don’t use it?)

I started the morning incredibly grateful for property owners that give PCT hikers access to their property. A million thanks!

The road walk ended abruptly and the LA aqueduct began.

The path was flat. Pancake flat.

There were signs posted to remind folks to stay out of the water.

There was a light breeze and it was quite pleasant hiking for the first few miles. Soon it began to warm up. A lot.

After a few miles the trail veered away from the open water and began to follow an encased water pipe.

I walked on the path beside the aqueduct, but not on this portion of pipe. Scaling is difficult in the picture, I’m guessing at a pipe radius of 3 to 4 feet, or a diameter of 6 to 8 feet. It’s big.

Later the pipe was missing and replaced by what I assume is a concrete vault. I could hear the water flowing when I stood close to the lids. There were sporadic access points like this.

I like the concrete sections that had animal paw prints in them.

Did the animals wait in the bushes to leave their mark after the construction folks went home at night?

As the temperature continued to climb I pondered if this area is a mobile home dumping grounds.

I decided I was too hot to bother lining up a good photo for you, dear reader. You may have the shot with a single abandoned mobile home. The landscape was littered with mobile home’ish carcasses.

Even the cows seemed perplexed at the stupidity of the hikers. I believe that cows are a disinterested group of animals. These cows seemed quite intrigued as we passed them. I was tempted to go closer for a better picture, but again, I was too hot to care.

I was happy to see Noelle around mile 10. I leapt (not kidding here) into the AC chilled van, removed my sweaty shirt, took off my shoes and socks and basked in the joy of AC and a semi chilled root beer.

We’ll scope out a pick up location this afternoon about ten miles down the trail. Noelle will drop me off around 6PM at the location I stopped hiking and I’ll resume hiking north. Noelle will drive ten miles down the trail (far easier said than done) and then start hiking south, back towards me. We’ll meet up somewhere on the trail and then hike back to the van together.

I’m excited to do a bit of night hiking!