Voice Post: Heading into Agua Dulce

“Hello. I hope LiveJournal timestamps these voice posts, because right now I am calling from the Godforsaken middle of the night. I have been up for approximately twenty hours, hiking for most of it, and in that time I have covered thirty miles, which is my longest day yet. But I am not done. I am going to hike about another two and a half miles down the ridge just so I can hobo camp under Interstate 14, because.. what the hell.

The reason I am up this late and taking this long to hike today is because I am right now about six miles out from Agua Dolce, which is my next resupply stop. I will be actually staying with the Saufleys. You can go to the website www.hikerheaven.com to find out a little bit more about them.

For the last thirty miles I have been baking, even the parts after dark. It is now something like 1:00 AM and it is over seventy degrees. I'm probably not even going to use the sleeping bag tonight. I'm just going to sort of randomly collapse on the ground and pick myself up in the morning.

Pretty much the only other thing I want to say right now is that the San Gabriel Mountains can kiss... my.... ass. I'm done with them, I'm not going back, and I've got desert in front of me but I'm not sure that's going to be any worse. Possibly with temperatures the way they have been-- the guy at the ranger station said something about the heat setting a record today, and the heat wave is expected to continue-- I'll have to check that out when I get into town. But that's pretty much the reason for the night hike. I can limp the last three or four miles into town early in the morning and not have to deal with temperatures above 100, as I expect them to be down here.

Anyway, more updates from Agua Dolce, since I will have fairly reliable internet access and I know I am going to be staying at least over into Monday afternoon. That's it for now.”

hafoc