Typing this after midnight as I finally lay down after the night hike portion of my 26.8 mile day. It was a little shy of 10 miles to get to my siesta at hikertown, and then 17 and change to get here. I blew through the 17 in 6 hours, which was an excellent pace.
The first 10 to get to hikertown went by okay, parts were a little steep going downhill but I made it in generally good shape for a 6 hour break before hiking again.
Hikertown is a fascinating spot on the trail – it’s maybe a few acres of mostly huts designed in an old western theme. If you want to stay overnight, you can stay in one, though they don’t have ac. It’s well known in the area, as I got a ride with a couple other hikers from an employee at a nearby store when we called and let them know we’d like to come by. I loaded up on candy, a burger, and sweet potato fries before intermittently napping for about three hours. After dinner, a group of six of us got started on the evening portion of the hike.
This is something that a lot of hikers do to cross this flat desert plain between two sets of mountains – hike at night. Obviously no sun beating down on you, but the wind is also less bad. We knew we needed to do a big chunk at once since the next water was 17 miles ahead, though a number of hikers try to make it all the way from hikertown to Tehachapi in 24 hours – a total of 40 or 50 miles depending where you hitch.
While I made great timing on the night portion, it was quite a mixed bag. Pro – it was almost all flat. Con – it was mostly dirt road walking without much to vary it. Pro – got to walk along the California and LA aqueducts! Con – my right leg was having all kinds of issues stemming from a heel blister that made me walk funny. Pro – got to see stars! Con – the moon didn’t rise until 11:30, so I needed a headlamp to see where I was going, and had to turn that off to admire the stars. Pro – hiking for that long without wanting to take many breaks meant I felt fully justified eating an easily carried and uplifting snack, a ziplock bag of needs and needs gummy clusters. I didn’t check the calories on those boxes but I’m pretty sure I ate (and burned off) almost 1000 calories of pure sugar.
For now the first order of business is ibuprofen, second order is sleep. Cool to book my longest day on the trail yet.
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