The Wonderland Journal

Miles hiked: 22.7

Mile marker: 406.6

I thought it was a good idea to leave at 6:30 AM. As I force my new tent — which is a wonderful palace — into its bag, the pungent odor of the pit toilet hits me in the face. 

Lucie and I both giggle and plug our noses in disgust. The pit toilet is a composting toilet. The way it works is you use the toilet, then step on a pedal five times. Each time you step, the conveyor belt moves a bit. After five pumps, your deposit is out of view. 

I tried not to vomit as I went through this process. 

We’re all ready and we stand in a circle, eating breakfast cookies with blank faces and shivering in the early morning. It’s about a quarter to seven when we get to walking. Everyone begins the hike wearing their fleeces. 

Not too far into the hike and we pause in a washed out area. Lucie is on the phone with family. I open an uncrustables PBJ and we sit down for a few minutes. Bumper, Savannah, and I stand behind Rafiki. The wind is strong here and we are all shivering and cold. Rafiki is slightly offended that he has to be the windshield as we all look like we’re standing in a tango line.

Soon, we are on trail again. We’ve taken off our fleeces, and the sun warms our faces. A sea of clouds is beneath us. I almost feel like I’m back on Maui, staring at some rock where the waves crash into it. 

It’s not even 8 o’clock when we get to the road. Funny thing, but there are some endangered frogs out here. That means that we won’t be walking on the trail. The road is very wide. The lines separating left and right are much larger walking along side of it compared to when you’re in the car and they zoom past like a flash of yellow. There are divots in the ground as well, and I almost fall into one as I’m trying to walk and write at the same time.

The trees are tall and skinny — and a little skimpy. The hills next to us are scattered with bits of green. 

Back on trail now, there’s a heavy fog setting in the distance. The trees are still skinny and sparse, giving the landscape sort of quiet and abandoned feel. Wiry grass sprouts out of the ground, along side of sharp puffs of grass that look like little troll heads.

We reach the road again. A cloud of fog passes over us. It’s wispy and spread out. The shadow crawls along the ground, it too, looking like somebody pulled apart a cotton ball.

We cross a road and climb back up the trail again. It’s uphill, usually, from the roads. I don’t like this, as going up a hill is sort of my nemesis. The cloud has settled in front of us, and it looks as if you could just step right off the ledge and bounce along the cloud. Rafiki is videoing the site when he pans the camera and says, “Oh, and there’s Bumper pooping. That’s great.” 

We all die laughing. Bumper had to go and there wasn’t much of a space for him to go. I don’t think he expected anybody to turn around and see him. We all get a good laugh out of this. We keep going on uphill. 

There’s sort of a goal and through hiking, which is a hike 10 miles before 10 AM. This is referred to as 10 before 10. However, we are way off track. We’ve been stopping a lot today and just been moving really slowly. I thought today was supposed to be much easier, flatter. Instead, there’s been a lot of uphill. I tend to move very slowly going uphill. I’m kind of like a snail.

The ground is hard and rocky. It’s the color of sand. We come to the top of a little hill and there’s a table that has a pile of giant pinecones on it.

We have officially come to the place where the mountain yellow legged frog is endangered. Now comes the road walk. We see so many snow flowers. Dad told me that they are rare, so I relayed that to the others. But we’ve seen so many of them on the trip, that all of the other hikers question if the snow flower is actually rare at all. They are beautiful. They look like they come from another planet. They’re bright red with a tent of pink. They look like they have pods and when they’re in full bloom, the pods swirl around.

We round a corner, and there are a group of hikers played out on the side of the road. One guy is even laying in the middle of the road, smoking a cigarette. Hiker trash if I ever saw it.

Our water source is here. I go down the slightly mucky path and carefully station myself on some rocks so that I can can collect some water. When I come back through, Lucie says she’s going to stay back a while.

The rest of us make our way back into the forest. It’s really rugged back here. We go down to a creek, and we end up losing the trail. Trees are turned over, rocks are thrown all over the place, and there’s a giant wall of sand that’s hard to get over. It’s like Mission Creek all over again. 

Why didn’t we just walk the road?

Rafiki walks on one potential path, while the rest of us follow Dad on another one. Rafiki ends up finding a better option, and Bumper and Savannah walk back and are able to get up on the path. Dad, however, is able to jump up the sand wall. He offers his hand to help me. He goes to pull me up to stand next to him. The only problem was, is that I didn’t secure my foot in the ground so he basically pulls me into the wall. I’m on my belly, trying to swing my leg onto the ground. I’m a lot heavier with 30 pounds on my back.

My legs are covered in dirt now.

“I thought you were going to jump!” he says.

“I was trying to get a foot hold,” I respond.

Dad and I can probably work on our communication skills. 

Finally out of the mangle of trees, we turn the corner and walk for a minute when we find the number 400 written out in pinecones on the ground. We made it 400 miles!

It’s funny, a month ago if you had told me that I was going to walk 400 miles, it would seem like such a long way. However, now, it doesn’t seem that long at all. It doesn’t seem as if I’ve been walking for 400 miles. It’s only taken me less than a month, after all.

We reach a pole that says “cell service,” all of us turn our phones off of airplane mode to check it out. Not much cell service that’s worth anything.

As we keep walking, the clouds are starting to look a little bit dangerous. They look like they may be full of water, and hiking in rain is no fun. The weather drops drastically. It’s cold, and we all put on our rain jackets. I can see the road from where I stand above it. The wind is blowing in my ears. I think I hear something howl in the distance, and I’m not sure if it’s a dog or if it’s the wind. It’s sort of spooky out here. As I turn the corner of the switch back and come onto the road, there’s a car picking up a couple of hikers who we have met a few times.

“Showers, comfy beds, and Italian sausage and pasta!” a grey haired gentleman says. “Oh, yeah, do you guys want some drinks?”

The two hikers who are in the car hand us the flyer for his business. It’s only $40 a night, and they offer a lot. Showers and laundry are heavy needs in the hiker community. But, we already have plans for tonight. We are going to get to Agua Dulce in just a couple of days.

The driver gets out of the car and starts loading us up with boxes. Grapes, cucumbers, snicker bars, chips, Gatorade’s, little Debbie cakes: he had so much to give us!

“I needed a pick-me-up!” Dad says. 

We keep moving. What a treat! The little Debbie cake is like crack. It’s so sweet and chocolatey, a delicious treat for this weather that’s getting colder and colder with every step. 

Bumper hasn’t been feeling well today. He quadrupled his protein and ate a lot of chocolate, so he stays to himself most of the day. I thought he was just tired because he didn’t sleep well last night.

Dad is ahead of us, and I start moving quickly. We still have a few miles left, and I’m ready to get set up in my tent. I’m tired, it’s been a long day, and we’ve been moving very slowly. It’s already passed 5 PM. I start moving quickly. Sometimes, I run. Every time I look behind me, the other three are not far behind. My knees hurt. My hamstrings are tight. My trekking poles act as extra appendages, as if I am an octopus or a donkey. The clouds roll over us, and evening is dropping. The bill of my visor makes it hard to see, so I flip it around. I keep jogging downhill or plowing uphill.

I’m tired and I’m ready for this day to be over. Plus, I’m hungry. I’m looking forward to a ram-bomb that actually tastes good, not one that has disgusting chicken salad in it.

We reach our water source, a little creek, and quickly fill up water. Dad and I leave the group and head .4 miles to the campground. We set up quickly, and soon I’m in my warm clothes. I join the crew at a picnic table where I make my dinner. There’s a little fire going. I don’t have my socks on since they’re made of possum wool and I don’t want to get them dirty. My toes are like icicles

“My feet are freezing for you,” Lucie says.

The fire is, smoky, but warm. I eat my dinner here and chat with a couple of hikers who I have not yet met. 

Lucie is full of surprises. She lived in England for three years when she went to college — she major in physics. She previously worked as a data scientist, so I thought that’s what she studied. I always like it when people are full of surprises.

As soon as I finish eating, I’m off to my tent. It’s already dark, and I don’t like having to finish the day in the dark. Things are harder in the dark. It’s cold, my fingers don’t work, which means journaling doesn’t work so well. I end up using voice-to-text. 

Walking 30 feet away to use the restroom or brush my teeth is much harder in the dark. Setting up in the dark — I wouldn’t recommend it. 

I lay down in my sleeping bag. I’m freezing. I’m on my stomach, with my hands underneath my hips. I realize that I put my sleeping quilt straps on incorrectly, but I’m too cold to fix it. I’ll put the straps on correctly next time. For now, hopefully I can get some sleep in this cold and windy weather. 

I thought the desert was supposed to be hot.

https://thetrek.co/day-25-little-jimmy-camp-to-sulphur-springs-camp-400-miles/