DWTH Day 57: So We’re Melting Snow…

Stats

Motel Morning

We awoke from a not-great night of sleep in the motel. I think we usually sleep worse in hotels on hikes because of the lack of airflow and too many stimuli. Either way, we woke up ready to try for the PCT. 

Luckily, our clothes dried overnight. We had to do sink laundry because the guest laundry was “out of order.”  I’m not sure I believed the front desk ladies. 

Instead, while I patched the tarp and my sleeping bag liner, Karma hand-washed our main clothing. He created a makeshift drying rack on two chairs next to the fan. 

Leaving *Before* Checkout

We normally hate doing this. However, the PCT connector went through urban areas and then a nature conservancy that didn’t allow camping. That meant we had to put in some miles. 

As we left the hotel, we got utterly blasted by the wind. We turned right around and put our mellies on in the lobby. 

Some Paved Road Walking

As with leaving most towns, we headed out on a paved road. We got wind-blasted the entire way up to Pioneertown (yes, that is the town’s name).

Most cars were nice and gave us space. But most of the drivers gawked at us blatantly. 

I had heavily scanned the weather forecast for varying elevations of today and tomorrow. The worst of the wind would be during the morning and afternoon today. 

Pioneertown

We walked right through a tourist attraction, Pioneertown. Apparently, it was built in 1946 as a Western movie set. Now, people actually live there. 

It was an interesting place. However, we did not linger because we figured we could always come back with a car when it wasn’t super windy. 

Some Re-Routes and Guard Dogs

As we went to turn onto the Sawtooth Trail, we encountered a sign saying it was permanently closed. 

The sign indicated we should continue on the paved road until the next dirt road got the new trailhead. It linked back up with our route, so sure, why not? 

Then, we got back on track and saw some freshly added no-trespassing signs and “dead ends” on roads that weren’t actually dead ends. 

We hesitated, but at that point, there weren’t too many other options, so we continued. 

It led us past some desert people’s houses that clearly wanted to live alone in a desert. Most of them seemed to have open gates with off-leash guard dogs. Only one gave us a bit of an issue. It let us pass, but it wasn’t happy about it. 

Pioneertown Nature Conservancy

Finally, we reached the parking lot for the Pipes Canyon “Trail.”  It used to be a motorized OHV road until the nature conservancy made it a foot-and-horse-traffic-only trail. 

However, it flooded badly in August. So, there were some low willow branch tunnels and bushwhacking. 

Of course, the ranger spotted us immediately and walked over. He asked us if we were PCT hikers. 

In that split second, we decided to be fully honest and give him a rundown of what we were up to. He thought it was really neat and gave us incredibly good beta. 

Bushwhacking Through Willows

The trail was very damaged, but it was clearly there in spots.

We did the usual route-finding thing and continued just fine. 

We did have to crawl through some of the willow tunnels, just like the ranger said. 

We did make one mistake, though. The stream was flowing great right where BT said it would be. However, it was flowing so well that we decided to go beyond figuring it was flowing higher than usual. 

Wrong. 

Well, it did go a little higher. We bushwhacked the worst section and found the steam dry on the other side. 

Sighing, we backtracked down the stream bed on the other side until we encountered minimal flowing water. 

We got some, filtered it, and then tasted it. Definitely tasted wrong. The orange shit growing in it made it smell like a pond. But it tasted sulfur-y. 

Still, with one liter of fresh each, we felt we’d find something later, given the forecast. 

Ummm…It’s Snowing…❄️

At the Forest Service boundary, large snowflakes began to fall slowly. 

That was definitely our cue to find a campsite. 

We did, and as we finished setting up, it snowed more. 

While Karma pulled out every guideline we had, I grabbed the cooking pot and a gallon ziplock and began harvesting the snow off of the tarp. 

It always takes a lot more snow than you think to melt into water. 

So, we started melting it. Eventually, we got through enough to make a liter and a half. That seemed like enough for the night. 

We dumped that same liter and a half that was in our dirty bottles and refilled it with fresh snow-melt water. 

And…then it kept snowing. While we stayed awake, we knocked the snow off of the tent from the inside every 30 minutes or so. 

And…it still kept snowing.