Monday May 26 & Tuesday May 27, 0mi/0km

Kern River Gateway Bridge (303.8/2650ft) to Mammoth Lakes (582.4/8020ft) (CA)

Monday was a day of relaxation at the RV park, where I didn’t do much other than eat, read my book, and do a little planning for the upcoming sections of the trail. In the afternoon I did the 15-minute walk down to the shopping plaza, and had a nice late lunch while enjoying the air conditioning and Wi-Fi of the local barbecue restaurant.

Tuesday morning I got up at 5am, packed up, and walked down to the bus stop where I caught the 6am bus to Bakersfield. I waited an hour for the next bus to take me over to Mojave, where I had a 3-hour holdover, waiting for the final bus that would take me to Mammoth Lakes. I hung out in Carl’s Jr with another hiker, we chatted for a couple hours about the PCT and everything hiking related, turns out he’s from Adelaide. I’ve met quite a few Aussies in the last few days! It was fun to compare experiences of our hikes in Tassie, the Larapinta Track, and Bibbulmun track. Small world!

The bus arrived at 2:30 and I sat with a couple PCT hikers who were headed north as well. Koen and Princess were from the Netherlands and Australia respectively. More fun chatting about hiking and tracks (trails) in Australia. I’m getting inspired to go back to Tasmania and do all the hikes that I didn’t do on my first visit. As the bus made its way North, I noticed the Sierra mountains were getting taller and snowier.

I finally got to Mammoth at 7pm, grabbed a quick dinner at a local pizza/ Italian place, and then walked across the street to the Shady Rest campground. Long day!

Sunday May 25, 14.9mi/24.0km

Lake Isabella RV Park (289.5/2560ft) to Kern River Gateway Bridge (303.8/2650ft) (CA) +0.6mi to RV Park

I slept in and had a lazy morning, mostly reading my book and eating bagels. I packed up and left the RV park at 1pm and started hiking the last few miles to Kernville, which is the end of this section. It took me a couple of miles to get across the freeway, but once I was on top of the dam, I had good views of the lake.

It’s a man-made lake, as I could see when I was walking across the rubble-dam. There were plenty of boaters out this holiday weekend.

The lake had a ton of little coves, and even those were chock full of people enjoying the warm weather and holiday.

For the first couple miles along the lakeshore, I was able to utilize dirt roads and avoid the paved highway.

This worked pretty well and allowed me to look around and enjoy the views. Then there was a 3-mile section where I had to walk on a narrow highway, due to private property in the area. It definitely wasn’t ideal and had some blind curves, but 99% of drivers were doing the right thing and crossing the centerline as they passed me. I left the road walk in the little town of Wofford Heights, and entered the Tillie Creek Campground. The entrance had this somber little monument to the Kern Valley Indians, who had been massacred here by the US cavalry.

It was nice to see a monument to a local tribe, rather than a conquering military force. It appeared that the Tillie Creek Campground had recently been closed, as all of the campsites were empty and grass was growing up in the cracks in the road. Still had nice views along the lake though!

I wound through a couple miles of dirt roads and little paths, and then emerged onto the paved road again at a cemetery. There was a nice dirt road paralleling the main one so it was a pleasant walk. Also most of the traffic was gone, it seemed few people drove past Wofford Heights. The last couple of miles to Kernville were sandwiched between some steep hills and the Kern River, which made finding a stealth camping site difficult. There were some definite possibilities in the abandoned golf course, which I saved in my brain for later. I arrived in Kernville at 6pm, and saw plenty of families out enjoying the park by the river.

It was definitely a tourist town with lots of kitschy little wilderness decor, including many bears.

The Kern River was flowing pretty hard, the kayakers were loving it but there’s no way I would cross that river on foot!

Looks like I made the right call in skipping this section, with the river looking so completely uncrossable. And I’m sure the other streams in the Sierra are equally swift and deep. After getting a quick meal at the brewery, I started to walk back toward the abandoned golf course to stealth camp. I saw a bunch of cars drive by, and then I got an idea to try to hitch back to Lake Isabella and stay at the RV park again. That strategy worked wonderfully, as I got a ride within 2 minutes by the third car that passed. A guy named Andy picked me up, he had been out exploring the forest on his mountain bike this weekend, and is also a talented wilderness photographer. He dropped me off at the Lake Isabella shopping plaza, I picked up some groceries and pizza, and then enjoyed the company of some nice families around the campfire at the RV park.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, and there is no public transit running on the holiday. So I will take a zero-day here at the RV park. On Tuesday I’ll ride a series of buses all day to get to Mammoth Lakes, where I will continue the Hot Springs Trail.

Saturday May 24, 20.4mi/32.8km

Ridge on Bald Eagle Peak (269.7/6090ft) to Lake Isabella RV Park (289.5/2560ft) (CA) +0.6mi to RV Park

Fortunately it wasn’t windy last night and my camp spot on the ridge was a quiet evening. In the morning I had a couple hours walk downhill on a nice dirt road to town.

Leaving the Sequoia National Forest.

Looking down into Lake Isabella.

Once I got to a paved road, instead of heading directly to town, the route goes up Hooper Hill.

In addition to the nice views of the valley, there were also strange stone artworks.

There was a nice little herdpath leading down the ridge, and once I got to a different paved road, I cleaned the grass out of my socks and then headed to a hot springs.

Unfortunately, there was a sign in the parking lot, that the area was closed to the public. There was no phone signal in this deep valley to search for the details.

I hung out and had a break at the nearby Hobo Campground, and checked out the Kern River.

I decided to walk the road a little further, and see if there was another access point to the hot springs. There was! I went down an old ancient concrete staircase and a herd path down to the river where the hot springs were.

It’s called Miracle Hot Springs and somebody even spelled it out in neat little stones.

There were a bunch of little pools that appeared to have constructed walls at one point, and it looked like somebody recently removed the walls. I later learned that the Forest service had purposely destroyed the pools in 2022, some locals had rebuilt them the next year, and the USFS destroyed them again in 2024. Such a bizarre decision. They’re nice! I hiked the paved road back the 3 miles I had just come, and then headed into the town of Lake Isabella. Despite being near a lake, the town seemed rather poor and a little outdated, I even saw a Radio shack.

A little further down the main road I stopped for a late lunch at Nelda’s diner. They had 48 flavors of milkshakes on the menu and it was so hard to decide so I got three different ones. Plus a pulled pork sandwich!

They commonly get PCT hikers here and they had this cool little charging station for phones.

I walked out of the north end of town to the lake Isabella RV park.

It was pretty nice with lots of shade trees, good showers, a laundry room, and even a lounge to hang out in the shade and watch TV. There were like a hundred old movies on tape, mostly Disney movies.

I hung out with some other PCT hikers and watched a couple movies, apparently I was the only one who knew that the TV had to be on channel 3 for the VCR to work, haha. Afterward I went to the RV park office and collected my package which Toppy had sent me, an ice ax and micro spikes for the Sierra Mountains section.

Tomorrow I’ll hike the last 14 miles of this “Coast Connect” section to Kernville, and talk to the rangers at the permit office. Due to the snowmelt and high-running rivers, I’ll likely have to skip this section and come back to it later.

Friday May 23, 24.2mi/39.0km

Robin Bird Spring (246.7/6320ft) to Ridge on Bald Eagle Peak (270.0/6090ft) (CA) +0.9mi to Cold Springs

I slept great in my quiet little spot and hit the trail a little after 7am. It was a little chilly but after a short climb through some meadows I was warm again.

I had a couple hours of gradual descent on the PCT through a cool forest filled with boulders.

Just a nice shady pine forest up here at 6500 ft elevation.

After 6 miIes I turned onto a dirt road to leave the PCT. As I was taking a break, a group of very entertaining hikers stopped to chat with me, and were very curious why I was turning the opposite direction everyone else was. Bison, Wizard Spoon, and 2 others were asking about the Hot Springs Trail, and seemed genuinely interested in the details. Most of them had hiked some combination of AT and CDT, so they’re probably looking for their next trail. They seemed like a high energy and cheerful group and I might see them in a couple days in Lake Isabella. I had a mile walk on a dirt road, this sign made it hilariously clear there was private property along the road.

I left the dirt road to find a dirtbike track, which was easy to find but it didn’t have any signs or numbering. In less than a minute I had to cross a shin deep stream.

It was starting to become a hot day so the water actually felt pretty good.
Plus I had an almost 1,000-ft climb on that dirtbike track before joining up with a bigger dirt road. Looking back on the steep dirtbike track:

From there I hiked uphill a couple more miles on a nice dirt road.

I took a little break at the top where there was a trailhead with some pit toilets. There was a guy parked up there with his family, he offered me water and asked what I was hiking. He wanted to hear more details but he was busy with his toddler children, so we exchanged phone numbers to meet up in town tomorrow. After we each discovered we both had a 585 area code, a long discussion ensued about colleges (Nazareth and RIT), Garbage plates, the Lilac Festival and the Buffalo Bills. Small world.

I hiked on a couple of miles to Cold Springs to fill up my water and stop for lunch.

It’s kind of amazing, it’s completely dry up here on this ridge except this metal pipe has gushing water. a group of dirt bikers stopped by the spring too. They thought I was a lost PCT hiker until I told them I was hiking the Hot Springs Trail, and I showed them my little map. They gave me trail magic! A club sandwich, some kettle chips, and a cold Coors light. I got a group photo of them before they left.

The rest of the day was much quieter. I didn’t see any other people, just expansive views since I was walking on a 7,000 ft ridge.

Mostly it was through a nice pine forest though occasionally it had some burned sections.

Towards the end of the day, I had walked far enough along the ridgeline that I could see down into Lake Isabella.

A couple small clouds moved in and gave the sky a moody feel.

Looking ahead to where the road drops off the ridgeline. I ended up camping in the saddle on the right.

Pretty good views from my campsite!

Tomorrow I have about 16 miles to get to the Lake Isabella RV park where I will be staying tomorrow night. It looks mostly downhill, hopefully it’s an easy day.

Thursday May 22, 23.4mi/37.7km

Sweet Ridge PCT (224.4/5870ft) to Robin Bird Spring (246.7/6320ft) (CA) +1.1mi correction

I slept in a little later, probably because of weird dreams, Voldemort taking over the White House and nobody really complained. It was a pretty warm morning, and just as I was finishing packing, a hiker passed me.

I basically spent all day hiking along a ridgeline, with heaps of views and not much water. Though I did pass the Golden Oak spring about 3 miles into the day.

The trail kept criss-crossing with dirt roads and at one of the sunnier spots I saw this enormously long snake.

It’s definitely not a poisonous one but I’m curious what type. It felt like I had the trail to myself as I hiked along the well manicured PCT.

Cool lizard.

In the distance to the east I could see a little bit of smoke, but also the red fire retardant they had dropped on the ridge.

A mile later I had a better vantage point, and I could see a little bit of smoke but it looked like they had the Jaw fire mostly under control.

Up at an elevation of 6,000 ft, the trail passed through some nice meadows.

They were filled with friendly soft grasses, not those spiky desert grasses that get stuck in your socks and shoes. More epic views.

Every time I stopped today a few hikers would pass me, and then I would Leapfrog with them when they stopped. I did end up hiking with Jen for a couple of hours, she is from north of the Bay area and has done a bunch of hiking around California and has started to look elsewhere.

And I probably met the one other person on the PCT who has also hiked part of the Bigfoot Trail. She stopped early to camp, and then I ran into an Aussie hiker, and I had fun chatting with him about all the trails over there, we both agreed the Larapinta was our favorite Australian track. He pulled over to camp right at the 600 mile mark.

I forgot about these little markers! I should start making them for the Hot Springs Trail, ha! A couple miles later I passed by a creepy little metal shack, there were a bunch of unfriendly signs and it felt like it was inhabited by some sort of doomsday prepper.

Weirdly there was also a big sign with the ten commandments on them which just seemed very inappropriate, and trashy in this pristine natural environment. The rest of the trail was nice and green.

At the end of the day I stopped at Robin Bird Spring.

I setup my tent at the junction before walking down the little side trail to the spring, where I collected 4 liters for tomorrow’s hike. I also met 19 PCT hikers camped right at the spring, they were all very friendly but it felt a little overwhelming. I returned to my nice quiet campsite. a couple hundred yards away.

I might have to return to the spring in the morning and collect more water, I leave the PCT tomorrow and the next reliable water source is uncertain.

Wednesday May 21, 13.3mi/21.4km

Highway 58 PCT (211.1/3840ft) to Sweet Ridge PCT (224.4/5870ft) (CA)

I had a lazy morning in the hotel room, just snacking and watching TV. I checked out at 11am, went to the hardware store in the post office, and came across this neat monument on the walk.

Apparently in the 1880s, Borax was mined in Death Valley, and transported to the railroad here in Mojave CA. It was a long journey across mountains and desert, so it took a team of 20 mules to haul it. Hence, “20 Mule Team Borax”. Neat! I also got an answer as to why the Family Dollar store was closed, a family of aggressive squirrels was living there and they haven’t yet been able to remove them all. Ha! I caught the bus at 12:30 and was back on trail before 1pm. I noticed like a dozen hikers getting on the bus to go into town, seems to be quite a popular service. There was a sign posted at the trailhead, informing hikers of a wildfire about 30 miles to the north.

After hiking for only a couple of minutes I came across a water cache, which I normally would have skipped, but I saw they had lemonade powder and that sounded delicious.

The trail followed the highway for a couple of miles.

I could tell I was at a lower elevation with all of the blooming cacti.

And then I started a big 2500-foot climb up into the mountains.

It was pretty warm, but I just kept a steady pace and before I knew it, I was on top of the ridge.

Looking South, back to all the wind turbines and the town of Mojave behind them.

I was confused about the random bright red caution sign. There were no hazards nearby.

I followed the ridgeline for the rest of the afternoon, with a good portion of that hiking on an old dirt road.

It was pretty hilarious to see a speed limit sign since no one is driving this road.

Occasionally I would hike through a nice meadow where it was quite windy, which actually felt really nice when it was 75°F.

Much to my surprise, I came across a small group of wind turbines, I thought I was done with them.

It was pretty windy, so after finding a spot to camp, I followed my usual procedure in the wind, and made dinner in the tent.

I ended up using almost all of my water, but it’s only 3 miles to a water source tomorrow so it’s fine. It’s a quiet night with just the white noise of the wind turbines, the hordes of PCT hikers must be camped elsewhere.

Tuesday May 20, 8.5mi/13.7km

Oak Creek PCT (202.4/4110ft) to Highway 58 (211.1/3840ft) (CA) -0.2mi correction

I started super early today as I had to catch the bus at 9:30, and I had 8 miles of hiking to cover. The trail was pretty peaceful at 5:50am!

I pretty quickly passed by a group of tents, presumably still sleeping. PCT hikers. After crossing a paved road, I entered the main part of the wind farm, it even had an interpretive sign.

This area was expectedly windy and didn’t have any trees but was oddly beautiful, especially in the morning light.

In 2015 I had accidentally missed this little 8 mile section, as there are 2 roads that access Tehachapi, and the trail angel who gave me a ride returned me to the trail in the wrong spot. So I got to see it for the first time!

Today was forecasted to be hot weather, but since I got all my hiking done before 9am it was quite comfortable.

As I started to descend from the hilly windfarm, I paralleled a fence which had this random sign on it.

And a mile later there was a nice bench that was installed as an Eagle scout project.

I definitely had to sit and test out the bench, I can confirm it’s an excellent place to enjoy sourpatch kids while overlooking the valley. The trail descended down to another road where I was greeted by three identical looking friendly dogs.

They had collars but no tags, hopefully they’re not lost. They followed me for a minute and then turned around back to their shady spot. I could hear a train in the distance so I hurried down the road and got across the tracks before a very long Union Pacific train came through.

I got to the bus stop on Highway 58 at 9am, a half hour early but I had plenty of time to sit and relax and snack.

The bus arrived right on time and apparently it’s also free for the month of May. This is a new service, the Kern county Transit authority added a stop on the PCT along their existing route, and it goes to both Tehachapi and Mojave, about five times per day. Sweet.

I was in town before 10am and walked directly to the post office to pick up a package. I love these little towns with their artwork on every building.

Then I walked down to the hardware store to buy another fuel canister, and the McDonald’s to eat lunch and hang out until I was allowed to check into the motel. That was another PCT hiker there, a guy from Germany who is skipping up from here to Mammoth. He was the first German backpacker I’ve ever met whose English wasn’t good so we struggled to converse but it was still fun. At 1pm I walked over to the Erth motel and checked in, dropped off my stuff and then went over to the Family Dollar to resupply.

Uh-oh. Closed. This was my intended option for resupply as the big grocery store is over a mile away and I don’t want to walk that far. Also, I wondered what could have possibly happened that caused the health department to shut down a store that does not serve prepared food. Mystery! I ended up finding a little local convenience store and pieced together a resupply for the 3 days between here and Lake Isabella. The rest of the day I spent relaxing in the motel room and snacking and planning the next sections of this hike, which is being complicated by the snowmelt runoff in the Sierras and high river levels. I called a ranger station and got some advice. I might have to skip the Sierra section and come back to it in the fall, darn. I went out and got dinner at a Mexican food truck a block away and then relaxed while watching movies, flipping between Lord of the Rings, and Weekend at Bernie’s. Good day.

Monday May 19, 23.6mi/38.0km

Cottonwood Creek PCT (178.8/3120ft) to Oak Creek PCT (202.4/4110ft) (CA)

It wasn’t a great night of sleep, as I had to move my tent to the other side of the juniper bush when the wind shifted direction. At 11pm, ugh. I finally got moving this morning at 7:30am and finished the easy hike along the aqueduct.

A mile later I came to the usual cottonwood Creek faucet.

LA water authority makes a big deal that they’re giving us free water and yet they’re stealing millions of gallons of it from the desert every day. After that I entered the wind farm area, nice to see that it hasn’t really changed since 2015.

That sign always gets me, electrocution danger but it’s okay for PCT hikers, haha. I saw wind turbines all morning.

After gradually climbing for a couple hours I came to Tylerhorse Canyon, the other water source for today.

I saw a couple groups of hikers lounging by the creek, and talked to them for a while while I took a break. It seems most of them started the PCT the first week of April. I told them I started April 6th….of 2015, ha! I started the climb up out of the canyon, but they had slightly rerouted the trail since 2015 and since I was hiking off of memory, I actually lost the trail. Embarrassing. I checked my maps and quickly regained the trail, and chatted with a fun trio of hikers, they were from New Zealand, England, and USA/NY. I love signing the trail registers, even though I don’t know any of the hikers out here, it’s fun to see the creative trail names.

I saw probably hundreds of lizards today, most of them moved too quickly to get a photo, but this one stayed perfectly still.

I kept climbing gradually up over a ridgeline, good thing it’s not hot today, this would be miserable.

At the top of the climb, a local trail angel had left a water cache along with a bunch of chairs and shade structures. Amazing!

I don’t remember this being here in 2015 but the sign says they’ve been doing it every year since 2001, so I probably just missed it in the cold foggy day I had that year. The descent off the ridgeline was very gradual and took the rest of the day, as the trail weaved in and out of every little side gully.

At the end of the day I made it down to Oak Creek, which is just before the first road into Tehachapi/ Mojave. I love that they label the water sources and also that it’s in metric.

I set up my tent under some trees next to the creek so it was protected from the wind, which I could hear above, as all the wind turbines were turning. As I was setting up my mattress, I noticed I had started to develop the bulge of death. Darn. I’ll have to contact Thermarest to get a replacement… again.

Tonight’s campsite is so much better than last night, protected from the wind and also next to a flowing creek. which means there will be humidity and maybe mice, but there won’t be wind!

Sunday May 18, 19.6mi/31.5km

La Liebre Hills PCT (160.1/3470ft) to Cottonwood Creek PCT (178.8/3120ft) (CA) +0.9mi correction

I left my cozy little spot in the bushes and had an easy hour like to Hikertown.

When I got to the road there I called the WeeVill Market for a ride, since I knew they did this for hikers. It’s kind of a general store and convenience store with a grill.

The first thing I ordered was a massive breakfast burrito.

For Third Breakfast®, I had a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream, and some fruit.

After a couple hours I couldn’t eat anymore, and I got a ride back when another group of hikers called for a ride from the trail. Now back at Hikertown, I went in to explore the place to see if it had changed since I had last been here in 2015.

It seemed basically about the same and still looked like an old Western movie set.

They did have a shower setup, so I figured why not.

Their hiker box was massive, featuring the usual assortment of mystery foods, plus at least six pairs of old Altra shoes, insoles, and even socks.

Yuck, who wants used footwear. I spent an hour there socializing with the other PCT hikers and then continued on the trail, along with two other hikers. Most of the hiking today was along the LA aqueduct, which was uncovered at first.

This section is famously dry, with the next water being 18 miles after hikertown. But, I noticed a local resident had set up a spigot and some benches in the shade for hikers. Nice!

There were a couple other hikers already here resting, Stones and WhaleTail. So our group of three hikers had now become five, and the shadeless hike along the aqueduct continued. Last time I was here in 2015 it was a miserable 80°F. Fortunately today it was only 65ºF but also quite windy.

What do hikers do to entertain themselves when walking for 5 hours on dirt roads? For this group, impromptu karaoke, and then a fun current events trivia game, similar to NPR’s “Wait wait don’t tell me”. Eventually after much laughter and loud singing, our voices were tired and we just admired the scenery. I knew I was in the Mojave Desert but I forgot that I would be seeing Joshua trees again. Neat!

There were many hours of walking along the LA aqueduct. At this point it is covered over in cement, so you’re literally walking on top of millions of gallons of rushing water, without access to any of it.

Toward the end of the day we started to enter the area with all the wind turbines.

And by 7pm I had found a nice big juniper bush to set up my tent behind, to be protected from the massive blasts of wind.

There’s actually a high wind warning for tonight, I hope it doesn’t get too bad.

This area is always windy, it seems.

Saturday May 17, 20.5mi/33.0km

Old Ridge Route (139.6/3550ft) to La Liebre Hills PCT (160.1/3470ft) (CA)

I awoke to a wet tent, and much to my surprise a cold (40s) and very foggy morning.

It wasn’t raining or even sprinkling but the wind was blowing the fog so that it condensed on surfaces. I hiked in my raingear most of the morning as my umbrella was relatively useless in such conditions. After 3 miles I came to the site of the old Tumble Inn.

It had a concrete water tank which was easy to get water from. Apparently previous hikers had to use a straw or hose to siphon it out of a small opening.

I didn’t need to get much water since it was only 48°F/9C, and the Misty / foggy morning continued as I turned onto a dirt Forest Service road to climb up to Liebre Mountain.

A couple hours later and I was on the top of Liebre Mountain, which had some cool artwork.

It was cold so I continued for a couple of minutes to join the PCT.

As soon as I started to descend the mountain I came out of the cloud.

It was cool to suddenly see the entire valley below me, where I will be hiking for the next couple of days. The PCT is such a well-maintained trail, I didn’t have to worry about brush or poison oak.

It’s even marked at all the little road crossings.

Looking behind me I could see the top of the mountain was still shrouded in the clouds.

Looking to the Tehachapi mountains to the North, and the valley with Hikertown, the famous PCT resupply stop.

I had descended over 2,000 feet from the mountain, and I was now in the Mojave Desert again. It had also become quite windy so I looked for a sheltered place to camp and found one in this dense grove of Scrub Oak and Manzanita bushes.

It’s a pretty sweet camp spot. I can hear the wind roaring above me but there’s not even a breeze here.