The Wonderland Journal

Miles hiked: 23.8

Mile marker: 430.4

I said 6 AM, but I don’t think I relayed that to Dad. Fortunately, I’m ready before anybody else. This is the first time ever. Unfortunately, everybody else is rushing to get ready because Dad told them 630 when I only told Lucie 6 AM.

Rafiki had a migraine last night, and decided to sleep away from everybody else so that he could get some good sleep. People tend to flock to him. I head over to his spot across the creek to make sure that he’s up and ready to go, considering the different times that my dad and I gave to everybody.

“Look at the thermometer!” he says.

“68 degrees? 69?” I say, quite confused since it’s freezing outside at the moment. “Oh! 39 degrees!” 

I was reading it upside down.”

It was a cold night.

Soon the group is ready to go. Rafiki and I both wear our fleece and rain jacket. I think that I’m going to regret this. It’s cold, but moving uphill? You get warm pretty quickly.

The sky is bright blue with puffy white clouds. It’s still pretty chilly. I have my sunglasses around my neck, but I find that they only get in the way. Earlier, I was trying to brush my teeth, and whenever I leaned forward to spit, my sunglasses swung forward and got toothpaste foam all over the lenses. 

Hopefully toothpaste helps to clean glasses lenses.

We walk on a white trail of sand and rock. Hills are pressed one against another in the distance, each one decorated with green bushes. The sun slowly rises, and we all stop to take off our fleeces. I didn’t expect to start uphill so soon.

The fog rolls over the trees again, like exhaust expelling from a train. It’s probably one of my favorite features out here.

The hills in the distance look like sand dunes. I can see a lake way off, and I wonder what it is.

We pass through a trail of Western paintbrushes. These are small flowers that grow on little shrubs. They’re bright red, but at the base of it, it’s green. It looks like someone dipped a green paintbrush into red paint.

We’re doing much better than yesterday. We walked 11 miles before 10 AM. Yesterday? We walked 10 miles before 2 PM. 

We come to the fire station. The wind is blowing aggressively. We’re all cold. We leaned against a wooden wall to get out of the wind. Last time Dad was here, they let the hikers into the backyard of the fire station. Bumper and I went to go investigate this, but the firefighter there told us that we were not allowed back there.

Lucie is not with us. I wonder where she is. Is she behind? Will she know to take the left fork to the fire station? We stay here a while, and even though it’s lunchtime, Dad doesn’t want to eat lunch here. We’re all really cold in this wind anyway.

On our way out, we find trail magic! We saw the guy drop it off. It’s full of coconut water, beers, water, and a yogurt – which I eat. I also get some rice crispies treats some skittles, starburst, a mandarin orange, an apple, and they had chips to offer too! This is great. While I was hungry after my snack, now I am no longer hungry.

How much trail magic is too much to take?

We immediately begin uphill. It’s so sandy over here. I feel like I’m at the beach. I don’t want to hike uphill, but at least I’m not in Rafiki’s situation. The tips of his trekking poles are broken, so he has no poles at all!

And, maybe to entertain himself, he’s been really spicy with me today. Poking at me from every angle. Honestly, I’ve been thinking a lot about some other things, so I don’t always have the right responses. My mind is focused on who I want to be in life and where I think I might go next.

We all take our jackets off again. We continue on and on uphill. It’s a pretty low-grade, so that is nice.

The clouds are looking menacing. We all put our fleeces or rain jackets back on in case it rains. The wind is blowing wildly at times, sending a chill through our bones.

We keep walking, and eventually it’s time for lunch. We walk and we walk until we can find a lunch spot. It’s cold, and we’re hungry, but finally we scout out a spot that is suitable. We probably don’t sit for more than 20 minutes. Everybody’s pretty cold down here. The sun comes out for one glorious moment. It shines down on us, like a warm kiss in a blizzard. It’s soothing on my face, on my arms: it’s so relaxing. It’s like being plunged into a warm bath after playing out in the snow. But it is only with us for a moment. Then it’s gone.

We keep moving. It’s getting quite cold now. We walk for a few more minutes until we come to the creek, and there’s Lucie! Lucie didn’t know where we were, and we didn’t know where she was. She had gotten 5 miles ahead of us at some point. Savannah had informed us of this a few miles ago.

We keep hiking together. The fog rolls in. It’s quite cold. We walk uphill for a while, and then downhill. Dad is ahead of us. The clouds and the fog are so thick that I can barely see anything past people around me. We go down, down, down until the clouds clear up. 

Tents! 

We can see green dyneema! We walk to the campsite and set up our tents.

Rafiki set up his tarp as well. He will be getting a new tent. He didn’t realize it was going to be so cold in the desert. We all make dinner. I make mine next to my tent because it is so windy and so cold. Lucie is completely bundled up with everything that she owns.

“I’d rather just go straight to Agua Dulce tomorrow,” Lucie says. “They have showers there.” 

Lucie and her showers. 

That means another long hike. We’ve been doing a lot more than our usual 20-mile days!

After my dinner, I enjoy a hot chocolate. I am really enjoying my new palace of a tent! I hope that I get some good sleep tonight. Tomorrow we may be another big day. If the weather continues to be like this, or if it begins to rain, will probably have a short day. Other than that, Agua Dulce is in the near future.

https://thetrek.co/day-26-sulphur-springs-camp-to-messenger-flat/