Day 33: Thursday, June 6

Cowboying under some big pines (PCT mi 597.6), walked 26.8 miles today

Woke up at 5:30, couldn't roust myself til 5:50, on the road at 6:15, immediate urge to poop set me back until about 6:30, finally moving forward then. Hadn't slept enough and I was almost too tired to talk for most of the first 12.5 miles to water. Spurred on, however, by the fact that by hiking north from Mojave I am now walking in the footsteps of my great hero, Cheryl Strayed. The Harlem Shake song was stuck in my head apropos of nothing. It was a weird morning. The desert was beautiful and fully vegetated at times, making me wonder what the other parts must have been like before they were all incinerated in the past 15 years.

Got to the spring at 11 or so, initially it looked as if it were totally dry, in which case I would've been fucked six ways from Sunday because I was out of water and already the thirstiest I've been so far. Upon closer approach we saw the thinnest trickle of water flowing from the PVC pipe. Timed it at .3L per minute, excruciatingly slow. Filled up all 7 of my liters, taking >20 minutes to do so, in case it ran dry by the afternoon, then found a shady spot for a nap. Listened to Iron & Wine to help get to sleep because pretty much every song of his is about falling asleep under a shady tree on a hot day or something. Woke up from sleeping in the shade totally drenched with sweat. Drank a gallon of water over the course of 6+ hours there and never peed.

Met Gehaz the Gangster, an Israeli dude, just before leaving around 5:30 or so. He says his name transliterates to Gehaz in the Roman alphabet because we don't have the (hocking loogie noise) represented by any letter, so Z has to suffice for him. Next ten miles flew by ... felt completely refreshed by that break and the massive amount of water and food consumed over its course. After dark we appeared to be hiking through some pretty serious forests, as well as grassy meadows (???), both of which I wish I could've seen in daylight. Saw what was probably a bobcat (house cat sized, moved swifter than a raccoon) skitter away from my headlamp beam twice within a minute, and Bow saw two scorpions on the trail. Found some bivy sites right next to the trail at our intended mileage for the day. Tomorrow there's a spring after 4.5 miles, another after 11.5, and then THAT'S IT for god damned ever. We rely on caches, some of which have questionable remarks in the latest water report, for the 42 miles after that. Lot of night hiking in my near future.