Wednesday April 16, 15.5mi/24.9km

Bank Wash Jct (66.5/360ft) to Big Wash (82.0/820ft) (CA)

Since I hiked so late last night, I slept in a little and started moving down the trail at 8am.

All morning I was hiking sandy 4wd roads and it was quick and easy going. Around mid-morning I came across a very strange sight– 5 palm trees.

And they were huge!

And a mile later I came across another similar sight, this one was marked on the map “17 Palms”. Coincidentally, this is where the “San Diego Trans-county Trail” crosses this trail.

I counted them, and there were actually 22. So maybe a few more grew? And while I rested there in the shade, I had Taylor’s 22 song in my head.

I continued on the sandy backcountry road, and there was basically no vegetation, just a lot of unique rock formations and striations in the nearby hills.

By noon I had arrived at the paved road crossing, which completes this guidebook section (section C). There was a cool little interpretive display about the network of backcountry roads.

I set down my pack and got to work at retrieving my water cache. As usual, it was quick and easy.

And then I cut up the 2 gallon jugs into small little strips so they would fit more easily in my pack.

There was no natural shade to be found, so I set up my chrome umbrella and enjoyed lunch in my self-made shade. It actually wasn’t hot today, so after awhile I got cold and took away the umbrella. After lunch I crossed the road and climbed up onto a plateau, where I had a view to the west of where the PCT travels. It looked stormy up there!

It had also become quite windy here, so I suspect there’s a storm front coming through. I descended down into a wash and then had to climb back out the other side on a route only vaguely described by the guidebook.

It was a fun puzzle to figure out, and eventually I figured it out and even found an old herd path to follow.

Once I was on top of this plateau, the view down to the Salton Sea was pretty impressive.

My next step was to traverse this plateau and then drop into the next wash. Surprisingly, I even found a couple of cairns along the way.

The drop into the next wash was quite tricky to figure out, and the line on the map seemed improbable, but once I got there it made sense. It kinda felt like the hayduke! It was a pretty deep wash, with a couple small sections that were slot canyons.

The pattern repeated, I climbed out of that wash, traversed a short plateau, and then dropped into the next wash which was much shallower and sandy-er.

The guidebook calls that one Grave Wash. Climbing out of that wash was tricky routefinding, but eventually I figured out a way. Based on the number of grapefruit-sized pebbles I knocked loose, I’m sure it wasn’t the best way, but it worked. I traversed another plateau, and by now it was 6pm and exceedingly windy. So when I dropped into Big Wash, I decided to try to find a place to camp. It was far less windy down in the washes, but still far too windy to set up a tent. Bivy night!

Making dinner and getting my gear arranged took a little longer than usual, since every step involved dealing with the wind. But by 7pm I was in my bivy sack and falling asleep.