KMS – Ridgecrest – Day 124

Day 124 – Thurs Oct 26th
Ten site Spanish needle creek – Walker pass Trailhead – Ridgecrest
1985.3 -2001.9
Approx. 3629 ft ascent 3468 ft descent
16.6Miles

At some point last night I woke up to the sound of a large animal running around outside our tent.

I looked over to Sarah and she was fast asleep snoring loudly. I listened hard in between the Z’s, trying to determine the origin of the animal and what it was. In the end I must have fallen asleep and we woke this morning without any further incident.

We made a pact last night to get up bang on 05:00 and although I needed a crowbar to get Sarah out of her sleeping bag we achieved our objective.

As we broke camp the west side of the mountain was still in shadow. We watch clouds rolling over the top of the mountain illuminated by the sun on the east side of the mountain.
Not only did we have an amazing sunset last night looking down the valley. The sunrise this morning looked like dragon’s breath rolling down the mountains, as the clouds were illuminated by the sun.

As I mentioned it had been reported that bears had been spotted in Spanish Needle Creek.
It wasn’t long before we started noticed prints etched in the sand.

We think we saw the prints of both the mother and a cub and wonder whether these were our nocturnal visitors last night?
As we saw in NorCal the sand really makes prints pop and they are much easier to see.

We have one small 1000 ft climb this morning as we climb birds similar to partridges fly out trees and bushes. The sound of their wings resonating like some finger of feather ruler against a school desk, as they fly off to safety

As soon as we reach the top we start noticing Joshua trees mixed in amongst the Sage and dried flowers.

We wind our way down the mountain noticing how on the west facing slopes are still in shade.
And how grey and lifeless it looks in comparison to the rest of the mountains, covered in grasses and a variety of plants species.

We avoid collecting water at Joshua Tree Spring as it was mentioned in Far Out that there have been traces of Uranium found.

We are now entering a region which is known to be dry with water carriers up to 20 miles.

Luckily just up from Joshua Tree Spring we find a creek that wasn’t highlighted on Far Out. We drink a whole litre of Gatorade and refill our bottles, carrying 4 litres to Walker Pass.
This should be more than enough even if we decide to camp there as this evening looks like it will be overcast and less hot.

Next up we have one final climb came from 5000 – 7500 ft. Once this is done we’re on the home stretch where we can get to the highway.

The smell of sage bushes brushes off onto our clothes as we hike past.

The last few days we’ve seen more military aircraft flying over the mountains. We wonder if this is somehow connected to some of the news we’ve heard from back home. Although later find out that Ridgecrest has a sizeable military base where top guns learn the ropes.

As we reach the top a fighter jet goes over our heads and turns his / her wings through 90 degrees down towards the ground as some form of salute.

Crossing between the two ridges of rock we drop into shade which is beautiful.
It seems to have taken a long time to warm up today and for the sun’s rays to warm the mountains.

Despite Far Out reporting that the bus doesn’t run today. Sarah calls the Transit centre and they confirm that there is in fact a bus to Ridgecrest at 15:30. We put some hustle in our bustle to get down the mountain + fortunately the trail becomes less rocky and is much softer on Sarah’s poor feet.

We arrived in plenty of time but when 15:30 came round no bus turned up.
As we sat by the bus stop on the hot tarmac a kind couple of locals called Betty and Tom pulled over and offered us a ride to Ridgecrest. This was a godsend + things were starting to look up!

Betty and Tom both used to work at the Military base and told us how the base and hanger had been used to film the new Top gun film.
They had also hiked the JMT so were more than familiar with all things thru hiking.

They also told us about the famous Aqueduct that takes water from the Sierras all the way to LA. Apparently water companies bought up a corridor of land all the way to LA stealing valuable water from these more remote mountain towns. It sounded like a very contentious issue.

They kindly dropped us off at the Library where we spent a frustrating couple of hours struggling with IT, blogging and admin.
The librarian there was way nicer than what we had experienced in Bishop so we definitely cannot complain. Although we are starting to notice a pattern that Libraries seem to be a place that attracts homeless souls and some rather “interesting” people!

The library closed at 19:00 and then we headed downtown to find somewhere to stay.
We checked out a couple of Motels, but the lady at Super8 offered us a room at just 70 bucks which was a steal. Especially seeing that the same company in Bishop had charged us over 200 bucks for a room!!!!
The manager at Super8 was also super nice and couldn’t have been more accommodating. Thanks again Debra!

Once settled we headed off to Walmart to resupply which for me was overwhelming. The store is huge and in my opinion takes forever to navigate. It’s meant to be cheap, but 5 days’ food chimed in at $288. Nearly £240! It’s so expensive over here especially seeing that there was nothing even fancy on the shopping list. Just trail foo!.

We had a relaxing evening back at the Motel and I watched “The Incredible Hulk” whilst Sarah had a bath.

We also decided to save some money and picked up some microwave meals from Walmart.

It was great to finally relax, even if I was sitting on the bed drinking a Hard Lemonade with filthy dirty hiker feet!