Day 5: Pioneer Mail Picnic Area - Desert Camp Spot

Day:12.04.2018

Miles hiked: 18.8 miles

Total Mileage: 71.4

What a night. The wind blew all night long and I can't really say that I woke up in the morning because I hardly slept. Hoping that when we just leave this spot we might also leave the winds behind us we packed our backpack and left at 7am. While filling up our bottles with water also Devin joined us. What an illusion with the winds might stop when moving on. Not that it became less, the winds even became stronger! Another illusion is that it is always hot in the desert. While getting up I put on my normal hiking dress consisting of socks, shorts, shirt, sun glasses and hat. Additionally, I put on my gloves (Joanne did not bring any gloves and used her sleeping socks alternatively :)). It was so cold outside (my phone said 1 Degree C) that my legs started to hurt as if someone stings you with 1'000 needles. Then the pain left and they turned red as a lobster. What is going on?! I urgently need to get my long merino sleeping underpants on! But there is not wind free spot! Turning around a bend the wind would not blow that hard we made sure to get our long underpants and all other warm clothes we carried with us on as soon as possible! We looked like we will do an alpine expedition! I was still freezing and the morning sun only shined through between the fast moving clouds, but not enough to warm us up. The only thing you can do is hiking along, hope for less wind and that your body heats up while hiking. Sometimes it was hard to even walk a step ahead without being blown away and even harder to find a spot to sit down and eat or relax your feed with not much wind. However, we did well with the mileages and hiked for nearly 10 miles by lunch time. As it was still early we decided to hike another couple of miles to find a nice spot for camping, with less wind and closer to Julian so the next day we could hike to Julian before lunch time.

Today we also found our first trail magic box with water, fresh grapefruit, gummibears etc. I picked a fresh grapefruit for dinner tonight but i didnt remember them being that heavy!

Rahel and Paul joined us while we were stopping for lunch. Around 5 pm we found that spot. No wind, epic desert view and only less than 6 miles away from where we would hitch hike to Julian we called it a day. Also our feet would not carry us much longer. All of us stumbled along the trail for the last mile. We helped each other pitching the tents and starting to cook. Again Joanne and me had a really nice dinner making the others jealous with a fresh grapefruit I picked up a couple of miles ahead from a trail magic box as a starter, ramen noodles with hydrated spinach and ham jerky as a main, some cookies as a desert and hot ovomaltine (similar to chocolate) to round it up for all. With a warm and full belly we felt into our tents and guess what - I could not hear any wind - sweet dreams to you all!