Day 40: Tehachapi - Joshua Tree ⛺

Day: 17.05.2018 Miles hiked today: 11.5 miles Total Mileage: Mile 569.8 After a zero day going back on trail takes some time. On one hand you are looking forward to be back on trail, making miles and enjoy the nature but also it's hard to leave a place with all the comfort it comes along! We still enjoy the comfort of tehachapi until 2 pm when we get a lift from the same women picking us up 2 days ago on the street. She has two small kids (2 and 4 years old) and they were worried we are as stinky as when they picked us up two days ago! :) the little girl hold her nose but was ok when her mum said we showered and finally would slowly take her fingers off her nose 😂

As we didn't hike until the freeway we do have to hike these 6 miles today. While I was very happy to hike less miles that day we hitched into tehachapi I wished now we would have hiked them already! The majority of hikers slack packed this 6 miles while staying in Tehachapi. Slack packing means that you hike a section (couple of miles) without a backpack or only a very lightweight one as you only carry what you need for the section and return to town the same day. So mostly hikers would only carry a litre of water but no food, tent, sleeping bag, food etc. This obviously makes the hike much easier and faster. We didn't. I still want to do the whole trail and slack packing is kind of cheating for me. But everyone hikes his own hike and that's fine.

We started in the middle of the wind mills again we left two days ago. It was windy but still nice windy so it cooled you down but doesn't wind you off trail. These 6 miles were not hard but also not very scenic. The next mile we hiked literally along the freeway which was not very scenic at all. But it was all flat and I liked that. Our backpacks are heavy again due to all the food and also the water we carry. The next water source is 23 miles away and we dry camp tonight so each of us is carrying more than 4 liters of water too. The last 2 miles was uphill, quite steep uphill I must say. I couldn't carry my backpack without taking it off for a long time due to the weight. And the wind picked up. The first camping spot we passed we picked. It's a beautiful camp spot below some Joshua Trees and we hope they will provide some shelter from the wind tonight - they did not really which we found out later. Only pitching the tent was hard already - impossible if you are alone (I talked to a guy the next day who had to cowboy camp cause he couldn't pitch his tent in the wind alone). Kermit decided to stay in my tent tonight due to the wind which I am very happy about.

In the middle of the night I woke up. I realized quickly that the wind (or better storm/orcan!) Ripped off a tent stacke and a pole. The tent was not really standing anymore. Now also Kermit wakes up but it takes her some time to realise what's going on. In the meantime I fixed it again and hope that it's not going to happen anymore tonight . While pitching the tent earlier today I put big rocks on top of each stake to make it heavier for the wind to rip them off. Still the wind managed to get one stake out at night. It was crazy, the tent was shacking badly and I was afraid that my tent is strong enough. Luckily it was and we are were still alive in the morning:) but so was the wind! Damn it