Mile 702.

Finally managed to contact the outside world. There’s one payphone and 50 hikers. I found some satellite internet (no photo uploads today) with extremely limited bandwidth.

Since Agua Dulce:

We crossed the Mojave desert on the tail end of the heat wave (hiked until 10:30 pm, woke up at 3 am to avoid the heat).

Ate about 7 pounds of taco salad at the Anderson’s.

Got blasted by wind in the Tehachapi wind farms.

Caitlin picked me up in Tehachapi where we went wine tasting and I slept in a bed for the first time in a month (slept for about 10 hours). What a lovely break. I put on clean non hiker clothes and none of my friends could recognize me.

We cruised the 144 miles from Tehachapi to Kennedy Meadows in 5 days. Night hiking is fine until you start to see eyes watching you. As long as they don’t follow you, all is well!

Made it through Walker pass and the 43 mile waterless section (6 liters of water and hiking early in the morning was the strategy – there ended up being several water caches so it wasn’t too bad).

Southern California is over, goodbye triple digit heat, waterless sections, checking shoes for scorpions, Santa Ana winds, hello Sierra! Can’t wait to summit Mt. Whitney!

I’ll post photos as soon as I can get some better internet!

andrew batjiaka

pacifc crest trail 2014

pct