Thursday May 2, 20.2mi/32.5km

Jct road FR258 (7.9mi/3810ft) to MRT official Start (13.8mi/0.0mi) to Taylor Cabin (14.3/4400ft) (Arizona)

The Sun rose so early at like 5:45am, I slept in until 6:30 and hiked out at 7am. It was a nice relaxing couple of hours along some disused dirt roads.

The only activity I saw on the road all morning was this sunning snake. I think it’s a northern Mexican garter snake.

At the end of the road, I came to the Parsons trailhead and immediately descended into Sycamore canyon Wilderness.

After just a few minutes I was at Sycamore Creek which was impounded by beavers in this area.

I crossed a little further downstream and had to take off my shoes since it was almost a foot deep.

It was the last reliable water for about 20 miles, so I took some time to fill up my bottles and also wet down my clothes in the hot weather. Eventually I left the creek and had a big 1,000 foot climb uphill to a plateau. Along the way I saw some massive prickly pear cacti.

And since it’s springtime in the high desert, I saw heaps of different wildflowers.

As I climbed higher and higher above Sycamore canyon, the views became quite expansive.

I gained the top of the plateau and even at this higher elevation it was still pretty hot. I hiked for a few more minutes, looking for a big shady juniper tree, where I stopped for a lunch break.

I took a pretty long lunch break since it was so warm I was in no hurry to leave and I was able to get out my solar panel to charge my phone. Eventually the state of the tree covered my solar panel and I decided it was time to leave. I meandered along the plateau all afternoon with pretty amazing views in all directions.

The view of the dead cow was less amazing.

I can see straight ahead to a giant rock formation with a cool notch in it.

Yep it was pretty warm 29C/84F.

I took way too many photos of the surrounding canyons.

The trail slowly dropped off the plateau, and the meandered along a sidehill above Sycamore canyon. Every mile or so it would cross a little wash, and in one such crossing I found a very strange tool. Sledgehammer!

I don’t know why someone would bring such a heavy thing out in the middle of nowhere, this spot is at least 10 miles from any trailhead. At the next little wash crossing, I was on the lookout for water, and I found some about 100m downstream in some little pools in the rock.

It was a nice surprise to get that water, since it was considered an unreliable source and I wasn’t expecting any water for 6 more miles. My pack was a little heavier again with water, but I walked along enjoying the setting sun on the redrock cliffs.

A mile later, I came to a junction to an old historic cabin. I wanted to go check out the cabin, and also figured that there would be a flat spot to camp nearby.

It’s called the Taylor cabin, and it had an information folder inside on a table but the papers were so old they were impossible to read. All I could tell is that it’s on the national historic register. I found a flat spot 100m away and set up my tent. I got setup pretty quickly, but then I had to deal with an exploded cheese package from the afternoon heat. Gross. I’m in bed early tonight as I hope to get an earlier start tomorrow.

Wednesday May 1, 8.5mi/13.7km

Jail Trailhead (0.0mi/3320ft) to Jct road FR258 (7.9mi/3810ft) (Arizona) +0.6mi looking for a longdrop

The sun wakes up weirdly early here in Arizona, I think it’s because they are on Pacific time during the summer time, when they should probably be on Mountain Time. But I was up early with the sun, and went to Fry’s just after they opened to do my grocery shopping.

I bought enough food for this upcoming section, plus three other sections where I would be mailing a box to the post office there.

I drove to the post office to mail out the boxes, and then drove to the storage facility where I would be starting by car for the next month. I double checked that I had everything on my packing list, and that all of the logistical details were completed. At 11am, I got a ride to the trailhead from Brian, who is a local trail angel for the Arizona Trail. He was super knowledgeable about the area and it was a beautiful drive as we made our way down Oak Creek canyon to the towns of Sedona and Cottonwood. I said goodbye to Brian, and noticed that I hadn’t remembered to fill one of my water bottles, so I went to a nearby Mexican restaurant to get some water. Since I was already there it was hard to resist the temptation to get lunch.

Their bathrooms had a funny sign.

After lunch I walked a block to the Start of the Jail Trail, and got a few requisite starting photos.

It was an interesting urban trail that weaved its way through a very verdant and lush area.

There were tons of little trail junctions, but most of them were well-signed like this.

After a mile I emerged into Dead Horse Ranch State Park. My plan was to just walk through the park and not camp since it was only 3pm, but also get a shower at one of the campground facilities on my way through. Unfortunately the entrance fee no longer covers showers, so I just kept hiking.

For a couple minutes I traveled along another lush area, which merged with the Verde River.

I soon left the river and climbed up onto a broad ridge, which was crossed with a series of mountain biking trails. Apparently the ridge also had some caution snakes, which is a new species I hadn’t heard of before.

And all the cacti were in bloom!

I passed by one water source which I expected to be dry, but it actually had a foot of water in the trough! I skipped this one though, since I had carried enough water to make it to a creek tomorrow.

I stopped hiking at 6:30pm and set up my tent, and it felt nice to be getting to camp in the daylight.

After such a big lunch, I wasn’t really hungry for dinner but I made myself eat something anyway while I watched the sunset. The sun sets weirdly early here, like at 7:30. All the hiking I did today, and for a couple hours tomorrow morning, are on the Cottonwood connector trail. It’s a 14-mile connection to get to the official start of the MRT, where I assume the trail will start climbing up onto the Mogollon Rim.

I’ve been taught three different pronunciations of the word “Mogollon”, so maybe I’ll get it right by the end of this hike!

Friday April 26 – Wednesday April 30

I gradually made my way to Arizona, after leaving the Pisgah & Cherokee National Forests in North Carolina, where I was helping my friend search for her lost dog.

After leaving the serenity of the forest my first stop was for dinner, which just happened to be in Nashville. The hot chicken was good, but the environment was chaotic. I would describe it as the Las Vegas of the Southeast.

I made my way across the country, and at one of the grocery stops, I found kringle, a Wisconsin pastry that I love and is hard to find.

After driving I-40 all the way across the country, I made a stop in Southwest Colorado. There was still plenty of snow up high!

As I drove the “million dollar highway”, aka US550, I noticed this really cool mountain and I have no idea what its name is.

I stopped by the Carver brewing company in Durango, which is one of my favorite spots. (They give Colorado trail hikers a free beer when they finish the trail!).

The next day, after tending to some car maintenance in the morning, I went for a trail run with my friend Katie who was visiting from Boston.

The next day I made the final push to Flagstaff, where I would start my hike. Along the way, I made the requisite stop at the four corners monument.

It’s a little strange that we celebrate a random geographic location that was man-made. But the nearby snack stand had really good fry bread!

After arriving in Flagstaff, I did a few errands around town, like shopping for supplies and printing my maps.

In the evening, I met up with one of my friends from the PCT, Beer Goddess. We had hiked part of the Arizona trail together last fall and it was fun to catch up.

After leaving the brewery, I made sure I had all my chores done. I left the grocery shopping for the morning but everything else is good to go!

Friday December 22 2023

Yucca Valley CA, to Kanab UT, to Las Vegas NV (Driving)

After finishing the hike, we rented a car and drove back to Kanab, UT, where I had parked my car a few months ago. We spent the night in Kanab, at a nice hotel at a ridiculously cheap rate, and then drove both vehicles (the rental plus my van) to Las Vegas. Vegas, baby! (The Antithesis of wilderness solitude). Then, we

WTH Summary and Thoughts

Overall

Routing
It’s a fantastic route, full of amazing scenery and animals, but you definitely have to work to traverse the landscapes. Brett has put together a route that feels like it naturally moves through the terrain, linking reliable water sources while mostly keeping the hike away from crowds and civilization.

Water
I’d say about 95% of the water sources are manmade, either the big game guzzlers in Arizona, the quail guzzlers in California, or the water spigots. I can only recall a few natural water sources in the entire 800 mile route, namely the Bill Williams River and a couple of rocky pools/Tinajas. The quail guzzlers in California were usually easy to extract water from, using a removable concrete lid. But sometimes the water could only be accessed through a narrow slot (the entrance for the birds), which required taping a small gatorade bottle to the end of my hiking pole, and using that as a ladle to scoop out water. Most of the quail guzzlers also had really nice clear water, whereas a few of the big game guzzlers in Arizona had greenish water with algae, since they were exposed to sunlight. All of them filtered perfectly fine with my Sawyer filter, and I never had any problems. I never had any alkaline water or cow-tasting water.

Navigation
Navigation was usually straightforward, but also required a high level of attention to the GPS, as the route frequently changed between surface types – very faint old roads, actual roads, XC, washes, burro trails, and manmade trails. By the end of the hike, we became very adept at finding even the faintest glimmer of a trail or road across a creosote-covered landscape. Each of us had hiked hundreds of miles off-trail in the desert before, so we were very familiar with navigation in low desert topography. This should definitely not be someone’s first desert route!

Remoteness
The route felt quite remote, as the only times we saw other hikers (dayhikers) on this entire route was in Saguaro NP, and at the end in Joshua Tree NP. We would usually see some ATV riders about once a week as well, but generally saw no other humans except in the towns. Most days, we spent some time in a designated Wilderness, which meant that no motorized vehicles were allowed and we had it all to ourselves. That said, it was never actually too remote, as most days I was able to pick up a Verizon phone signal.

Camping
As for camping, it was actually pretty simple. The vast majority of the route is open to legal camping, with the only exceptions being in Saguaro NP, some sections of Joshua Tree NP, and anytime we were near a town. These spots are always clearly marked on the maps and in the databook, so it was easy to plan for this. Most of the terrain was camp-able, since the general pattern of the route is that it connects isolated mountain ranges by crossing wide desert lowlands. As long as we avoided these steepest parts of the mountain ranges, the terrain was usually flat enough to camp. And the vegetation is usually so sparse that it does not affect the camping situation either. In fact, there were a few windy nights when we were wishing for more vegetation, to serve as wind blocks. Sometimes the ground was a little hard, requiring pounding in the tent stakes with a rock, but I only broke two tent stakes over the entire 800 miles (which is pretty normal for me).

Daylight
Our biggest challenge was a factor that I hadn’t given much consideration to when we were planning this hike. Because we hiked this in November and December, there was very little daylight. We had about 10.5 hours of usable daylight every day, which meant we were hiking with headlamps for at least 30 minutes a day. We could’ve hiked fewer hours (and therefore fewer miles) each day, but then we would have to pack more days of food for each section, which was not something that either of us wanted to do. Most days we hiked about 21 or 22 miles, which I felt was a good compromise of forward progress while trying to minimize night-hiking. If I were to do this hike again, I would start earlier (mid-October and finish by the end of November), or start much later (February 1st and finish in mid-March). Almost every day we were setting up and breaking down camp in the dark, which started to wear on me a little. But it was amazing seeing every single sunrise and sunset every day!

Gear
In regards to gear, I carried my usual hiking kit, plus a chrome umbrella for the sun, and some extra water bladders (6L capacity). I also experimented with a new piece of gear, a small foldable 10-watt solar panel. It actually worked pretty well during midday, as long I had angled it squarely to the sun’s rays. I would verify the optimal angle by plugging my phone into the solar panel, and then using a phone app called “Ampere” to see the charging speed. During 30 minutes at lunch, my phone would usually gain about 25% battery. I also carried two Anker 10,000mAh batteries, though I hardly ever had to use the second battery. Another piece of gear that was surprisingly important was my USB wall charger. Every piece of hiking electronics I own (headlamp, inReach Mini, Anker Batteries, phone) charges using a USB-C cable, which is about 2x faster than the old USB-A cables. My new wall charger had dual USB-C ports, which greatly speeded up charging and decreased the amount of time I needed to spend in some of the towns. It was particularly helpful in Fenner and Amboy, which aren’t towns at all and have no motels/lodging, so you can only spend a few hours there. Lastly, I wish I had brought a pair of durable gaiters, especially for sections 6 and 7, which have a decent amount of XC thru sharp grass.

Weather
The weather was fantastic, I think we only had two days where it rained, and even then it was only for a couple of hours. I wore my rain coat and rain skirt once, and I only had to dry out my tent twice. The daytime temperatures were perfectly comfortable, when we started in early November it was in the upper 70s, and by the time we finished December 21st it was in the mid-60s. The nights were usually in the upper 40s, though we had a few pretty chilly nights in the upper 30s (mostly in Section 7 which is higher elevation). I was initially concerned about wind as this is a very open landscape, but it really only affected our camping situation maybe twice.

Permits
We got a permit to camp for two nights in Joshua Tree National Park, other than that there were no permits.

Alternates
There were a few short alternates on the route. In Section 1, we took the alternate to resupply at a Loves truck stop and get a shower. In section 4, we invented our own alternate to get to the town of Wenden quicker, it skipped a guzzler that we didn’t need and saved about 3 miles. In section 5, we took the Alamo Dam alternate to skip Ives Canyon, which we discovered was impassable. In section 6, we took part of the Whipple-Turtle shortcut to avoid a rocky wash. I wish we had hiked the entire shortcut, but this would require placing a water cache before the hike, since the shortcut skips a critical guzzler. In section 7, TopShelf took an alternate to get around a steep section of bighorn sheep trail. I hiked the steep trail and enjoyed it, but it’s not for everyone. Both routes took the same amount of time, about 1.5 hours. In section 8, we added the Yucca Valley alternate, which in my opinion should just be included in the main route. It added 19 miles, but they were easy miles on well-maintained trails and it was a very scenic section of Joshua Tree NP. And it ends in the town of Yucca Valley, which is bigger and has quite a few more services than 29 Palms.

Caches
We didn’t cache any water or food, and it worked out okay. Our biggest water carries were about 30 miles (3 times), and our biggest food carries were six days. If I were to hike this again, I would place a couple of caches: 1) a water cache in section 6 at the highway 95 crossing, to break up a potential 49-mile dry stretch (we got lucky and found a pothole of water, making it only a 30-mile dry stretch). This would also allow us to take the Whipple-Turtle shortcut, a much more enjoyable hiking route. 2) A food cache somewhere in section 7, maybe at KelBaker Road or the Hole-in-the-Wall campground. It would be nice to not carry six days of food.

Migrants
We saw plenty of evidence of migrants in sections 1 and 2, and even heard voices early one morning, but we never saw any people. We mostly saw discarded blankets, water bottles, cell phones, shoes, and other such things. As soon as we crossed north of interstate 8, we stopped seeing these.

Resupply
Brett has an extensive resupply guide. Most of the towns had a sma

Hitching
All trail towns are accessed by walking directly thru them, or hiking a spur trail. We chose to hitch to Wenden instead of hiking the 5 mile spur trail, and then we hitched to Salome (5 further miles on the same road). Of that series of 4 hitches, only the first one was easy, the rest were achieved by asking someone in the campground or the general store.

Trail Magic
Ha!

Animals
We saw bighorn sheep, burros, tortoises, snakes, lizards, deer, maybe elk, and jackrabbits.

WTH Connector – Romero Pass to Saguaro NP

I thought this section was fairly straightforward, because it’s mostly on the Tucson Urban bikeway, along with some singletrack trail and roads. There were some good camping spots within 3 to 4 miles of Romero pass, after that it’s in a urban environment. We hiked about 20 miles and then stayed in a motel, which set us up nicely to hike out the next afternoon and make it into wilderness again. There were a couple of water spigots along the route in this section, so staying hydrated was easy. Most of this section is in the suburb of Marana, which is very spread out and built for car traffic. The available hotel options were not near the grocery stores or Big5 outfitters, so we ended up taking an Uber a couple of times back and forth.

Section 1 – Saguaro NP to Arizona City
This section seems to ease you into the route, with plenty of straightforward roadwalking and singletrack trails. There was minimal XC, and those sections were usually short. Water sources seemed extremely plentiful, and I usually saw 2-3 guzzlers or cow troughs every day.

Section 2 – Arizona City to Buckeye
This section had a few more XC sections that required some attention, and we had fun with them. There was still plentiful water, and quite a bit of civilization as we had to follow along a canal after leaving Arizona City.

Section 3 – Buckeye to Tonopah

Thursday December 21, 24.1km/15.0mi

Joshua Tree NP – Quail Wash (787.5/3460ft) to Yucca Valley Village (802.5/3280ft) (CA)

One last time, we left camp at 5:45am and hiked a little bit in the dark.

Pretty soon, we were hiking in daylight and realized that we had been gradually hiking uphill the whole time. We had a couple more miles of moderate uphill hiking to get to our final pass of the route.

Still going uphill…

Near the top of the pass, I got to witness a blazing orange sunrise over the eastern mountains.

After the pass, we only descended a little bit before crossing a wide grassy plateau.

Pretty soon we would be leaving Joshua Tree National Park, so I made sure to get a few photos of the namesake trees.

Around mid-morning, we hit a trail junction where the Bigfoot trail (that we had been hiking) ended, and we joined the California Riding and Hiking Trail. It mostly followed this wide sandy wash downhill to the edge of the park.

It even had mile markers! I think it traversed the length of Joshua Tree NP, so it’s a pretty long trail.

Joshua Trees everywhere!

We enjoyed a brief stop at the Black Rock Canyon campground, taking advantage of the flush toilets and water fountains. It looked like a pretty nice campground, complete with some funny signs.

We left the campground, and a few miles later we exited the National Park. The few miles of the route uses neighborhood streets to get to its Western terminus in downtown Yucca Valley.

Most of the streets had pretty predictable names, most of them with a Joshua theme.

At 11:30am, we finished the route at the Western Terminus in Yucca Valley!

We took a minute to celebrate the accomplishment, and then pressed the button for the crosswalk. Our first order of business was food, and after reviewing the options that were within a walkable distance, we decided on the Black Bear diner.

It’s a California chain of diners, and I recall them being pretty good from my towns on the PCT. My turkey dinner did not disappoint.

After the diner, we walked across the street to the local grocery store and got a few snacks for the hotel room. The Super 8 Motel allowed us to check in early, which was great!

The first shower felt so good, as it had been 17 days since we had last showered in Parker AZ. There wasn’t a local laundromat, and we didn’t want to put our dirty clothes back on after we showered, so we went next door to the dollar store and bought some cheap clothing to wear. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing, and involved a lot of resting and eating.

The “Desert Winter Thru-hike” was a great route! I really appreciate Brett Tucker’s creation of the route and his attention to detail with it. I’ll have a more detailed post with my overall thoughts on the route, but for now it’s time to rest after 830 miles of desert hiking. (1,450 miles including the Arizona Trail!). Tomorrow we will pick up a one-way rental car at the local Enterprise, retrieve my van where I parked it in Kanab UT, and then drive to Las Vegas and fly home.

Happy Solstice!

Wednesday December 20, 37.8km/23.5mi

Joshua Tree NP – Johns Camp (765.0/3880ft) to Joshua Tree NP – Quail Wash (787.5/3460ft) (CA) +1.0mi to water spigot

After a pretty solid night of sleep in our cozy camp spot, we started at 5:45am again. Since we were hiking in a wash, the navigation was easy.

The view behind me to the east:

As we hiked uphill in the wide sandy wash, I noticed the local plant community was changing. I now saw more scrub oak, juniper, and prickly pear cactus.

After an hour of hiking uphill in a series of dwindling washes, we climbed up over a tiny pass, where there were great views of the park.

We slowly dropped in elevation, and crossed the Queen Valley. The quantity of Joshua Trees in this part of the park was impressive.

I thought this was a textbook example of a Joshua Tree.

Even after crossing the entire Queen Valley on a gradual descent, we were still pretty high. In the far distance, I could see Mt San Jacinto.

It’s a 10,000ft peak on the PCT, and it was a good reminder of how much westward progress we had achieved! We continued onwards to the area known as Wonderland of Rocks, a popular place for rock climbing.

Near the entrance to the area is an old homestead, which was painted pink!

Hiking thru the Wonderland of Rocks area was entertaining, with lots of fun little scrambles and slab walking.

We saw several groups of climbers and hikers, and even talked to one of them. The last time we saw someone hiking on a trail was way back on Day one, in Saguaro National Park! TopShelf led the way thru the rocky maze, usually following climbers’ trails.

Near the end of the rocky maze, we stopped and had lunch in a wash, as usual. It was our last lunch on trail as we will be finishing tomorrow around noon. It felt a little sad that this was our last trail lunch. After lunch, we had a little bit more walking through the Wonderland of rocks and all of its Joshua Trees.

Soon after, we connected with the Boy scout Trail, which was a veritable highway for hikers.

Yep, we cruised for an hour on a wide and flat trail.

I saw a massive juniper tree that was in full blossom.

It had so many berries!

After the Boy scout trail, we turned onto the Big Pine Trail, and then the Northview Trail. As the name would suggest, it had pretty great views to the north, where the towns of Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, and 29 Palms are.

From there, we descended through a very scenic boulder maze.

Once we got to the park road, we took a small detour to refill our water bottles. The water bottle filling station is right next to the entrance booth, which was very busy. It was a little jarring to see so many cars and people.

After we returned to the trail from our water mission, we had another two miles of hiking. We joined the Bigfoot Trail, which descended down a wide sandy wash.

Pretty soon we arrived at Quail Wash, and we hiked a little bit further to find a spot to camp.

It was a little tricky to find a decent place to camp, because there were a ton of rodent holes in the soil in this area. Eventually we found a suitable place, and put up our tents one last time. Tomorrow afternoon we will arrive in the town of Yucca Valley and the finish!

Tuesday December 19, 36.2km/22.5mi

Pinto Mountains Wilderness (742.5/2200ft) to Joshua Tree NP – Johns Camp (765.0/3880ft) (CA)

We started off hiking in headlamps as usual, but it only lasted like 15 minutes. As soon as we dropped into a wash, there was enough daylight to see.

We hiked up a nice wash all morning, and made pretty good time. After an hour, we passed by another guzzler but it was mostly buried in gravel from the wash.

It seemed like it was built in a bad location, since this would constantly happen every time the wash had water. We continued up the nice wash, and eventually branched off into a smaller and crappier wash. It was very rocky and slow going, and sometimes I even had to dodge some sharp plants. After what felt like forever but was probably only an hour, we climbed up out of the wash and onto a nice broad ridgeline.

The ridge had great views in almost every direction and it was smooth walking on the “desert pavement”.

The view west, towards Joshua Tree National Park:

From there, we descended into another wash and followed that downhill for awhile, before we turned up a side wash and climbed up it for an hour.

After climbing out of that wash we emerged onto another ridge. There was definitely a pattern today! And from that ridge of course, we could see down into the next wash that we would be hiking.

Once we descended into that wash, we stopped and had lunch. There wasn’t much sunshine since it was a little cloudy today, but it was just enough to do some charging on the solar panels. After lunch we followed that very nice wide wash uphill for an hour, and eventually it turned into a road.

The rest of our afternoon was spent hiking uphill on a series of dirt roads, that took us to the boundary of Joshua Tree National Park. From the top of that pass, we could see down into the park.

We followed a park maintenance road down into the main part of the park. Along the way I saw this hilarious sign!

And a few minutes later, we saw it in the namesake flora of the park, the Joshua Tree!

We continued down the park maintenance road, where I think the park employees were having some fun with the road painting machine.

For the last mile of the day, we hiked in a very nice wide wash.

And the sunset looked absolutely stunning from that vantage point.

We didn’t want to camp directly in the wash, since that’s where the cold air settles, so we found a flat grassy bench just above the wash and setup our tents there. Only two more days until the finish!

Monday December 18, 38.8km/24.1mi

Sheephole Valley Wilderness (718.4/2120ft) to Pinto Mountains Wilderness (742.5/2200ft) (CA)

We left camp at 5:50am and immediately headed down into a deep wash. It felt very narrow, especially by the light of our headlamps.

A few minutes later, we stumbled upon a Bighorn sheep skull and horns! Cool.

After a short while, we climbed out of the wash and followed Bighorn sheep trails up and over a couple of little passes. Looking south from the last pass in the Sheephole mountains:

After the passes, we had a nice hour of flat hiking across a plateau…

… before dropping down another wash, and down into this valley.

It was surprisingly cloudy all morning, and it never really warmed up above 55F/13C. Brrr. We crossed the valley, which was like four miles of small sandy dunes. It was easy to navigate, but the soft sand slowed us down.

Just before we crossed the paved highway, the sand increased, and our pace decreased.

After crossing the highway, we hiked another couple of miles, and had lunch next to the dirt road we had been traveling. It still was only 60F/16C and cloudy, so we didn’t stay long. After lunch, there was more nice roadwalking.

As we were crossing over a pass, the clouds started to disperse, and I was actually warm. Hooray!

At the bottom of the pass was some interesting roadside graffiti, though it seemed too old to call it graffiti.

The rest of the afternoon was relaxing roadwalking, on nice firm sandy tracks.

And there was even a bit of cross-country on “desert pavement”, a naturally flat, firm, and relatively smooth gravel surface.

We filled our water bottles at a quail guzzler, enough to take us 14 miles tomorrow to the next guzzler. It was getting dark, but we hiked another 10 minutes, since you’re not allowed to camp near a guzzler. (I wouldn’t want to camp there anyway, all the animals would be visiting the water source all night long.) We setup our tents, and it was surprisingly warm, which was nice. Only three more days until this trail is finished!

Sunday December 17, 40.1km/24.9mi

Mojave Trails National Monument (693.5/680ft) to Sheephole Valley Wilderness (718.4/2120ft) (CA)

It was a pretty uneventful day, just a bunch of easy miles across the low desert. We started at 5:45am and hiked toward a very vivid sunrise.

After an hour, we crossed the big paved road that goes to Amboy, and had a nice morning of cross-country hiking, with the Bristol Dry Lake on our left side.

TopShelf and I regrouped at a dirt road junction, and spent the rest of the morning heading southwest in a perfectly straight line along the utility road.

We stopped for lunch near the end of the road, and enjoyed the warm sunshine. The solar panels loved it too, and our phones were mostly charged by the time we packed up. The afternoon was more cross-country hiking thru some sparse creosote bushes.

We arrived at our first water source since town, 32 miles ago. The quail guzzler was full of water, and that was a relief. We spent awhile filling all our bottles, since it’s another 28 miles to the next water.

The remaining two hours of the day was spent hiking up and down three little passes, usually using washes for ease of travel.

The views from the passes were surprisingly good, given how little we had climbed.

The view from the last pass of the day!

From there it was another mile to our planned camp spot, and I made it just before darkness set in at 5pm. A lot of miles, but an easy day!

Saturday December 16, 18.5km/11.5mi

Roy’s Motel and Cafe (682.0/640ft) to Mojave Trails National Monument (693.5/680ft) (CA)

We slept in later, knowing the store didn’t open until 8am. I packed up my tent and walked back to the store, arriving a few minutes after they opened.

The premises had a bunch of touristy and Route-66 themed stuff.

The inside felt cozy, and the manager, Nicole, had decorated it for Christmas.

And the store had plenty of snacks and frozen microwaveable food to keep us fed!

We sat at the counter, which looked like a 60s-style affair, complete with stools and shiny countertops. For my 2nd breakfast I had a frozen pasta meal, a burrito, chocolate milk, ice cream, and a wonderful beverage called Bundaberg Ginger Beer. Usually I can only find that beverage in Australia!

The resident dog, Xena, kept coming over for pats and head scratches.

After eating a ton of food and charging all our devices, we finally left the store at 12:30. We walked along the paved Route 66 for a couple of miles, leaving Amboy.

The road goes directly to Joshua Tree National Park, where we will be finishing this trail. But our route takes over 100 miles instead of only 49, ha!

During the 30 minutes we were walking on the road, only one car passed us, it felt very empty.

During that same timeframe, I saw 4 trains go by. A customer in the store had told us that he was an employee of BNSF railways, and they have about 100 trains per day thru here …seems about right. Just before we turned off the road, I got a photo of one of its nifty logos.

We turned into an attraction called the Amboy Carter National Natural Landmark.

There was a trailhead with a parking area and bathrooms, and even a real trail!

The crater was a mile away, it looked pretty big. The sign said it was 250 feet tall, and 1500 feet in diameter.

The crater up close! The trail continued up to the top of the crater, but our route continued directly south. I’ll have to come back someday to hike up the crater.

Behind me, I could hear yet another train going by, and I realized the view of the Amboy valley was pretty nice too.

Looking ahead, we had to hike thru 4 miles of lava fields.

It was a fun puzzle, linking together smoother sections of ground, and avoiding the rockiest patches. It was slow progress, and I distracted myself by finding all the random flowers that like volcanic soil.

Eventually the rocks started to subside, and we could see a straight path ahead to the south.

Our next terrain feature was Bristol Dry Lake, which we hiked across.

I’m sure at some point in the year it had water, but most of the time it’s just a barren flat expanse of land. It should’ve been easy hiking, but every 25 steps or so, the ground would randomly collapse, and punch thru a few inches. Annoying. It made a great sunset photo though!

After the dry lakebed, we had a mile of cross-country, and then stopped to camp near a dirt road at 5:30pm.