Winter Hiking in the Tehachapis
This is a re-posting of Karen 'Whisper' Friedrichs' story from a year ago. There has been considerable discussion lately on the PCT-l about winter PCT hiking with a particular focus on the Tehachapis. She walked north from Hikertown to Tehachapi with her friend, Catherine. This is Karen's journal entry from the next to the last day of their adventure. While most of us only know this stretch of trail as one of unrelenting heat, for Karen and Catherine it was a stretch of unrelenting cold.
Karen hikes year round. Her monumental challenge of this past summer turned out not to be on the PCT but the logistics of getting from Muir Trail Ranch to Mammoth. She recounted her adventure as follows, "you can't hire a horseback ride out unless you're a guest, but you can walk out. We followed a combination of awful dirt/rock slab road and disappearing sandy trail to the shore of Florence Lake. After that anti-climatic final six miles, we used a hand-held radio to summon the 'ferry'. This small boat takes folks to and from Muir Trail Ranch several times daily. We were joined by two other hikers in the 'ferry'.
The High Sierra in contrast to the Tehachapis
Once we arrived at the far shore our next leg was to hitch a ride to Fresno. The luckiest part of the day was when these two hikers were going to Fresno and were happy to give us a lift. The 90-mile drive took over three hours and they were kind enough to drop us off at the train station. We just missed the train to Merced, so we waited a few hours in the air conditioned station rather that outside in the sweltering100-degree heat. From Merced we planned to catch the YARTS (Yosemite) bus through Yosemite and back around to Mammoth where we started.
By the time we got to Merced we'd missed the final YARTS bus of the day so we stayed in a motel and caught it in the morning. It took most of the day to get around through Yosemite and to the Mammoth Mountain parking area where our vehicle was."
By Karen “Whisper” Friedrichs
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Gamble Springs Canyon - Oak Creek Bridge
Looking toward Cottonwood Creek
Cold, very cold, colder, much colder, etc. I’ll try not to whine while describing today’s events. When we woke up I was puzzled by the white sleeve on my black jacket. I turned on my light and realized that the inside of the tent was covered in frost or frozen condensation. I haven’t experienced this before. My squall tent has netting on all four sides and has only collected a minimum amount of condensation. It was 20 degrees on my thermometer at first light and I don’t know how much colder it was during the night.
I was wrong about these last hundred miles of the PCT. I had believed that once I reached Acton, I would be out of the San Gabriel Mountains and into the desert. I thought, ” Great, some nice winter desert hiking.” I’m very familiar with my local desert. I thought this would be like Anza Borrego where I could walk along the trail, no jacket needed. Not in this desert. There’s an abundance of cacti, agave, yuccas, Joshua trees, even Mormon tea covered in snow. Would that be iced tea? It certainly looked like desert but felt like tundra.
16 miles south of Willow Springs Road
We had some hot cocoa and packed up quickly. Climbing out of our little canyon was just what we needed to get the heart rate up. Once upon the ridge we entered the snow covered mountain tops which we trudged through for most of the day. We estimated that at least 80% of our route was covered in snow. For several hours I lead as the snow depth varied greatly. I became increasingly annoyed at the extra work and energy required as a result of sinking down each step with the loaded backpack. After a particularly deep section I asked Catherine to lead. My mood improved almost instantly from the relief of plopping my boots down exactly in her footprints.
Occasionally the sun would come out and warm us up a bit. Near the highest point of our day there was a small cabin just off the trail in the woods. Soon after that there was a water cache complete with hiker log, snow covered beach chair, water bottles and trash bag. There was even a make shift roof of branches to keep the hot sun at bay during the spring. We decided that it probably was 70 degrees colder here now than when most of the thru hikers passed this way.
When we made a stop for lunch it began to snow. We needed to keep moving to keep warm so I ate my sandwich as we continued on. A little while later we were treated to the sight of eleven black horses and one colt just across a small ravine. They were following an obvious leader northbound on the PCT. It was a very dramatic moment, watching the jet black horses run in a queue through the white snow. They wanted to get away from us, but continued to move north adjacent to the trail so we got to see them several more times. The next unusual sight was the “tiger tank” an old watering trough with a bit of ice in it and a six foot shower attached. A shower is the last thing I wanted today, not that it was anywhere near operational.
We moved as quickly as possible today and yet it took seven hours to do just under 13 miles. It felt more like 20 to me. There was no water down at Oak Creek and initially we were glad we had made the effort to stash a gallon nearby [they had established water caches prior to beginning this section of the walk]. When Catherine went to retrieve it she came upon a water cache of several more gallons near the road. Just over the bridge there was a little campsite maintained by the Tehachapi Mountain Riders, a horseback riding group. It had a picnic table, a hitching post to tie up horses and a sign that stipulated, “NO FIRES.” I was so cold just before we arrived and had been fantasizing about another warm fire. Not to be. The site was situated just below several wind turbines and less than a hundred yards from Tehachapi Willow Springs Road. We were both in our bags at 4:00 PM, exhausted but happy to be beyond the snow covered tread.
