Across the Desert 2: The Mojave

Start: Fenner, CA

End: Baker, CA

Miles: 80

Days: 3

Day 5: Return of Jet Fighter

Start: Fenner, CA

End: Mojave Wilderness Boundary

I wake up at 7, just as the horizon is starting to light up with dawn. A full 12 hours of sleep! I feel amazing after the previous two awful nights of sleep. It's chilly this morning- probably only in the high 30s, but a lot colder than it's been any of the previous nights. Our route only gains in elevation from here into the Mojave, and I'm expecting some legitimately cold mornings in the next few days. I pack up my stuff and, once again, head back to the gas station for breakfast. I'll be meeting Jet Fighter there around 11.

Our plan is to hike out of Fenner this afternoon and make some chill miles. Then, tomorrow morning we'll hit Hole-in-the-Wall Visitor Center at mile 21, which has a water spigot. From there it's 59 miles the rest of the way to Baker where we will be relying on natural springs. We're just going to play it safe, and play it by ear.

The last few hours waiting for Jet Fighter are agonizing, but finally she arrives. We load up our packs with the three days' food we picked up, grab four litres each, and head straight out into the desert. Goodbye Fenner!

It's amazing to be hiking with someone again. I fill her in on the adventures of the past four days as we cross the big flat between us and the Mojave's distant hills. To our left, the Providence range looms high and jagged. My pre-covid route involved a blind ascent of the saddle right below 7,162-foot Edgar Peak and then a confirmed rough, scrambley descent. Seeing them now makes me glad that I'm not trying that on this adventure. I'll be back.

We turn onto a road that basically doesn't exist, and instead decide to follow a well-trod cow path heading in the right general direction. Following this path, it seems that cows hate rocks. They will go very far out of the way to avoid a single rock sticking up in their path. Overall, though, they follow a very aesthetic route. It's been interesting seeing the difference in terrain between burro-made trails, cow trails, human trails, and straight cross country. They all have their own unique feel, their own unique choices relative to the terrain, though I don't quite know what the distinction is.

The cow trail seems to be making a beeline for a corral in the distance, by a lone hill that resembles a pile of pebbles but enlarged a thousand-fold. We decide to check it out. A couple ravens take off as we approach the corral, mocking our slow pace and heavy packs. I can see sunlight sparkling off the lip of the trough that's inside. Well, so much for carrying all this water. There are some cool vines growing on the edge of the trough, with fruit that resemble mini watermelons. I slice one open and lick it to see, but it tastes absolutely foul. I would later find out that these are coyote melons, among the bitterest plants in the world. Apparently they're a relict of prehistoric times, when mastodons would eat them and spread the seeds. Nowadays they're mostly spread through wash bottoms.

Forbidden Fruit

From here, we pick up a dirt road that follows the Mojave wilderness boundary. My right Achilles starts to twinge with pain with every step. The going feels weirdly slow and difficult. I chalk it up to afternoon heat, residual fatigue from two days ago, and the heavy-ish pack. However, upon checking Gaia I'm amazed to see that we've climbed 2,000 feet from Fenner. The terrain here is so vast and open that you can't even tell you're climbing, but there it is- we're now at 4,000 feet or so.

We start to see more and more Mojave yucca. We also pass three more water tanks, each one having a trough brimming with water. They taunt us and the four litres of water that weigh heavy on our backs; we could have done this section completely dry. My left knee also starts to hurt with every step.

A cattle trough The tragic Reese's

The sun is setting as we reach the third tank, so we sit against it for a snack break. This is a tragic break, as I open two Reese's to discover that they've been liquified into their wrapper to make a messy and unsatisfying snack.

"Want to stop and set up camp early at the next wash? I'm hoping it will give us some shelter from this wind."

Of course, we proceed to hit a junction and turn North, parallel to the washes, and we stop crossing them. It gets too dark to see without a headlamp, so we just step off the dirt road and plop down in a flattish spot. It's a nice evening despite the fierce wind; having Jet Fighter with me changes the whole dynamic of camping in the dark, and for the first night in close to a week I don't feel horribly worn out. I'm worried about both my Achilles and my knee, but we'll see what tomorrow brings. We have survived today.

Day 6: Tap Water, Sulphur Water, Rat Water

Start: Mojave Wilderness Boundary

End: Cima Dome

We wake up at 5:30; the wind has not abated at all. It's not that cold out, but the incessant gusts just complicate everything. Packing up is a slow and unpleasant ordeal. We start back down the dirt road from last night. The yuccas grow bigger and bigger, becoming tall and treelike to give this stretch a prehistoric feel. Nothing like the yuccas I'm used to out in Colorado. After about an hour we hit the paved road that will take us to Hole-in-the-Wall. The visitor's center is closed, but thankfully the spigots in the picnic area are still working. Here we run into someone working for the Great Basin Institute, studying the fire that wrecked Cima Dome this past summer. Like pretty much everyone that we've talked to out here, he too remarks that it has been a very dry year. We ask if he knows the status of Burro Spring or Cut Spring on the dome, but he hasn't heard of either.

We are faced with a bit of a dilemma here. If burro spring, 16 miles away, has water, we're good. We can get water there and keep on cruising. If it doesn't, though, then going on to cut spring, 8 miles further, would be risking having to hike 24 miles back to the visitor's center without any water. Between my injuries and Jet Fighter's knee though, we don't feel comfortable loading up with a crazy amount of water. We decide to take 3 litres each and go for broke with burro spring.

From here the trail takes us through Hole-in-the-Wall itself. This is a slot canyon that travels through some spectacular rock formations. Huge spirals adorn cliffs whose sides are pockmarked with huecos of all sizes. Apparently this canyon is shaped by the wind that blasts through here. We're not surprised- some good gusts are whistling through right now. The canyon has a few narrow dryfalls with metal bolts screwed in for climbing, a fun break from the relentless dirt roads of the past day.

It feels like this canyon is the gateway to the high Mojave. Leaving it, the air feels moister and the vegetation a lot thicker. Massive yucca grow everywhere. To our surprise, there are also a bunch of cows just past here.

The next 13 miles follow a trail to Mid Hills campground. We climb up, up towards 5,000 feet. A few isolated pinon pines begin to dot the landscape, the first familiar plants of the trip. The pinons are islands of green scattered through a mess of burnt trunks; it must have been an incredibly pretty spot before the fire.

Climbing up towards the Little Thorne Mountains, the terrain opens up again and the wind comes back, fiercer than ever. Our trail is incredibly faint. We lose it a few times and have to consult Gaia; even when we have the trail it's essentially cross country from cairn to cairn. Weird organic-looking rock formations of smooth granite dot the landscape; they remind me of the crumbly boulders on the back side of Pikes Peak. The climbing makes my achilles start to hurt.

Jet Fighter stops to pop a blister, so I go check out a wildlife guzzler right off the trail. Dry, as expected. There's also a cattle tank nearby, but by the time I realize we've missed it, it's already a good quarter mile back. The trail peaks up at 5,400', but we don't drop much elevation beyond it. This is the High Desert, after all. The terrain up here is lonely and bizarre. We pass a group of three cows; these ones look skinnier, leaner, and wild. One of them right in the trail stares at us, giving off an aggressive vibe. He takes a couple steps towards us, and we decide that we're better off skirting widely around him.

The trail becomes an actual trail again as we approach Mid Hills. It's a nice place, tucked into a dense thicket of pinon and juniper on top of a bluff. We stop for lunch here, taking shelter from the wind behind a pinon. Peanut butter and tortilla. It feels good to be cold and trying to warm up for once, as opposed to hot and trying to cool down. We cross through the campground, checking the water spigot as we go- I hadn't been expecting anything here, but it would have been foolish not to try. Descending a gully away from Mid Hills, I see some pronghorns running up and out of the gully in the distance. The pinons give way, and I see my first joshua tree!

We descend into Cedar Canyon and climb up a wash to a dirt road. Crossing the road, we meet an army of joshua trees. It is an absolute spectacle, this forest in the desert, the largest joshua tree forest in the world.

Entering the forest (Cima Dome is that flat thing on the left)

The dirt road takes us past some strange ruins; there's an old, long-dry cattle pond here. Jet Fighter doesn't like the feel of the place, and I have to say that something about it creeps me out too. We hurry on. We both start feeling anxiety over the upcoming water source, 3 miles away. Please have water please have water please have water

These last 3 miles pass in silence. We turn up the wash, the wash where we'll find burro spring. Please have water please have water-

It's completely quiet through the joshua trees, no sign of life. We keep going up the wash. I check Gaia. The locator disappears, and then reappears- way past burro spring. We missed it, and I didn't even see any signs of water. No animals, no lush plants, nothing. Fuck. No way, no way. I really don't want to stop and turn around here. NO.

Jet Fighter and I drop our packs in the wash and hike back to right where Gaia says the spring is. There are a few, very old piles of burro poop. I look around in the wash. There is nothing. I walk through dead grass on the hillside. Wait... the soil here is damp! I poke around in the bushes just past there, and I find it: a small pit dug into the hillside. Deep, deep in the qanat, there is water! LETS GO! We aren't done yet!!! I call Jet Fighter over.

I crouch over the qanat, and have to reach my entire arm in to pull out some plant matter in the water. A stench of rotten eggs hits me. Uh oh. I fill up my bottle with some water from the qanat. It is a shockingly opaque, black sludge color. I smell it, and it reeks of sulphur. Jet Fighter and I decide that, even if this is questionable water, it's still water and we should proceed as if it's drinkable. We consolidate our remaining freshwater, and then start collecting the sulphur water. To be extra careful, we decide to filter it too instead of just doing the usual AquaMira treatment. After some trial and error, it turns out the thin nylon of my pants works best for filtering. So I take off my pants and start pouring water through them. It takes out some of the obvious sediment, but the water is still tar-black. We take 10 litres of foul-smelling sludge to supplement the 2 litres of good water left. Jet Fighter will start off drinking the good water while I get sulphur water. That way, if it's deadly poisonous or something I'll find out while Jet Fighter is able to get help. Or something like that. It doesn't matter, we have WATER.

Now this is fucking thru-hiking

We descend towards a paved road as the sun sets. My Achilles flares up again. Jet Fighter is able to get a bit of service and look up whether sulphur is safe to drink-- I was worried that mines might put it in water to signal contaminated groundwater in the same way that sulphur is in natural gas so you know when there's a gas leak. But she finds no such thing, and I'm able to drink the disgusting water with less worry. I do hope that Cut Spring, our target for the night, has water so that I can ditch this gross stuff that barely passes for water. We cross the paved road and start our roadwalk up Cima Dome.

Cima Dome is one of the weirdest geologic features I have ever seen. It shows up as a bullseye on topographic maps, just one perfect circle inside another. Seeing it from Mid Hills, it looks like there is a giant UFO buried in the ground. It doesn't look real. Walking up Cima Dome by road is one of those gradual climbs where it doesn't look like you are going up, but for some reason everything is harder than it should be. With the road walking and heavier packs, my feet really start to die. A stunning joshua tree sunset provides a small distraction from this pain, but before long we enter the burn area and we're marching down the road in the dark.

We hit the dirt road turnoff and take a short rest to break out our headlamps. Two more miles to Cut Spring. Both of us are exhausted. Onwards. The climbing gets a bit steeper as we head up through the burnt skeletons of joshua trees. The contrasting black charred bark and white underbark reminds me of the angry forest spirit in Avatar the Last Airbender. I'm probably just projecting my own distress at the burnt forest here, but it really does feel scarred, unhappy, Angry forest spirit

distraught. We pass the burnt remains of a cattle coral,

twisted metal creaking in the wind.

The burn abruptly ends as we enter an area of thick brush. Cut Spring! I spot a cement culvert sort of thing, covered by sheet metal and weighted with some big rocks. I crash through the brush to reach it and lift the cover, peering down into the darkness. In a horror movie, this is where the thing would get me and pull me in. But no thing grabs me. About 10 feet down the hole is a pool of water. Two large rats float, dead, in it. Well so much for that. I'll stick with sulphur water over dead rat water.

Jet Fighter and I make camp on the edge between the burnt area and the riparian area. It's getting chilly already, and we're up above 5,000'. It's gonna be a cold night. It's a quick dinner of sulphur-tinted ramen, and then we're out like lights. It's been an exhausting day, both physically and mentally. We're looking at another big day tomorrow.

Day 7: Tired Feet

Start: Cima Dome

End: 6 miles away from Baker

"Today is going to be a rough one."

We wake up at 5. It is cold. My water bottle has frozen through overnight, and even my water cube with 5 litres has ice in it. Forcing on my cold clothes and wiggling out of my quilt takes every gram of willpower. We start up along the riparian area of Cut Spring, and within minutes come to a small pool of water. No rats! I taste the water. It has an incredibly strong animal taste, like it flowed through a barn or something. It sure beats sulphur water though, so I pour it out and refill with six litres or so. Then we're off, climbing up the remainder of Cima Dome.

The only indications that we have arrived at Cima Dome's summit is that I can see it on Gaia, and the wind picks up. It looks flat, like any other terrain we've walked over through this burnt joshua tree forest. There are some cool rock formations though, highlighted by the beginnings of sunrise. The burn does make the cross country through here shockingly easy, as we can mostly head in a straight line across soft ashes, no spines or cliffs or rocks to get in the way.

The sun is lighting up the tops of the joshua trees as we arrive at Deer Spring, on the edge of the burn. This spring is also flowing, though it's a muddy puddle heavily slimed over and covered in cow prints. Jet Fighter and I each grab a litre. We don't dilly-dally for too long; it is freaking cold here with the wind (Sorry, no pictures!)

"Wow, the sun feels so nice!"

"My hands are absolutely frozen."

We cruise downhill, off of cima dome, to intersect a dirt road. It's a short snack break at the road, and then we're headed into the cinder cones area of the Mojave. We pass a few corrals along this dirt road as joshua trees gradually dwindle and give way to creosote. This road is covered in a mosaic of tire tracks, though we don't see anybody for the hours down it. I wonder who drives here, and why. The towering black cinder cones are neat for maybe an hour, but I have to say that I'm underwhelmed by them. It doesn't help that my feet are already killing me and it's only 10 or so.

The long dirt road

"Hey look, people!"

"We must be getting close to that lava tube thing."

It feels really strange, after having seen one person and four cars since Fenner, to suddenly pass a good dozen people. I feel like I don't belong. We take the short side trail to check out this lava tube. Metal stairs lead us down into a little cave. Through a crawl, and we're in a chamber lit up by two sinkholes in the ceiling. The rocks deafen all noise, creating a profound silence that is louder than any noise. It's a really pretty place.

There's some weird photo shoot going on in the lava tube though, with a woman all dressed up sitting on a rock and a bunch of photographers blurting out instructions. Even without covid being a thing this would be annoying. They're taking up the deepest, prettiest part of the cave, and their commands and flashing cameras are abrasive against the silent stone walls. We sit for a few minutes, but their hustle and bustle ruins the peaceful vibe. We head onwards, towards quieter terrain.

Even with the annoying people, the lava tube was pretty darn cool

A few minutes out from the lava tube, Jet Fighter and I decide to break for lunch. I decide that this lunch warrants some shoes-off time. I always took my shoes off during lunch on the AT, but I had completely forgotten about it so far on this hike. It feels great to wiggle my toes through the sand while eating, and I resolve to take my shoes off more often at lunch.

There is some more cross country over a small flat, then we climb over a series of hills. We're approaching Cane Spring, our final water source before Baker. I don't feel the characteristic anxiety on the approach, though- our successes at the past three sources make me feel more confident about this one, and plus we could easily, albeit uncomfortably, make it into Baker without the spring.

We pick up a burro trail- hell, this is a burro highway- heading in the right direction. Even more promising in regards to water! The trail follows the edge of a huge wash to an easy descent point, then doubles back along the wash bottom. I decide to try and shortcut it by plunging right down into a side wash.

"I did it!! One of my shortcuts finally worked!"

We walk along the bottom of the side wash, past a bed of dried, leafy red plants. I look back just past it to see... water! Right there, in the bed of plants, is a little qanat. Jet Fighter and I get our water here instead of taking the side canyon to Cane Spring. We only need a couple litres each, just enough to get us to Baker.

I've completely forgotten about my sore feet in the miles from the lava tube to here, but after grabbing water the complaints return in full force. We take a dirt road that parallels the edge of the wash. It's rocky and hurts the feet, but we're worried about getting cliffed out in the wash-- it has quickly transformed from a big wash into a full-blown canyon, the sandy waterway snaking through the rocks way down below us. This surprising scenery more than makes up for the underwhelming cinder cones.

The canyon ends, as does our dirt road. We drop back into the wash, passing a lone pickup truck, owner nowhere in sight. My Achilles really starts to hurt again. I think that going through the sandy wash bottom makes me dorsiflex my foot more, putting more strain on it. The wash takes us out into a huge alluvial fan, and a final, 10-mile flat stretch all the way into Baker.

We take the wrong route out along the alluvial fan, but we're able to readjust and only lose a half mile or so, though it does mean a few miles of painful cross-country instead of an easy dirt road. We finally reach the road, and the last few miles pass in agonizing slowness as we make our way towards the distant buildings of Baker, now glimmering in reflected sunlight on the horizon. It's very tempting to just stop where we are and set up camp, but I would rather have an easy day into Baker tomorrow than stop an hour early today.

Tired.

Nonetheless, we're able to get into camp decently early to chill out and enjoy the changing light of sunset. I am psyched about the prospect of an easy day and town food tomorrow. It's been a brutal 3 days, but we've covered 76 miles in just 2.5 days of hiking and our water sources have actually been working out. After the desperate, full-effort haul into Fenner, I am in utter disbelief to now be staring at Baker.

As we lay down and turn off the headlamps, I hear a rustling and a chirping at my head. I throw on my headlamp to see a little desert fox just feet away from me, sizing me up with an inquisitive look. I go to wake up Jet Fighter, but by the time I turn back it has scampered off into the night.

Day 8: Post Office Hooligans

Start: 6 miles from Baker

End: Hollow Hills Wilderness boundary

We let ourselves sleep in, waking up at 6 and packing up without headlamps. It's a nice change, packing up in warm weather and visibility instead of the freezing tunnel of a headlamp. We cruise out the last few miles as the highway and buildings of Baker loom closer and closer. Emerging onto Kelbaker Road, we pause at the big Mojave sign for pictures before crossing the interstate overpass.

I stop into a gas station to grab some HEET for my alcohol stove. Gasline antifreeze- it is a ubiquitous accessory in gas stations everywhere I've ever hiked. But there is no HEET to be found here. It is the desert I suppose. I have to settle for a jug of 70% isopropyl alcohol, resigned to slow cooking and a pot covered in disgusting soot.

Next it's on to McDonald's and the post office. I load up with two 10-piece chicken nuggets and a large fries. The important stuff settled, it is a delicious .7-mile walk over to the post office for our resupply box. One 10-piece and most of the fries are gone by the time we arrive. Where did they go? Jet Fighter goes inside to get our box while I set up camp behind the post office and feast. We hang out on the side of the parking lot, looking more homeless than hiker trash. It's cold in the shade so we sit in our quilts on the pavement, cleaning out our stuff, sorting food, and looking at maps.

Hiker Trash

Ahead of us is the Kingston Range. The water sources through here are pretty simple, in an absolutely brutal way. From Baker, it's 24 miles to Francis Spring. Francis looks ok in the Desert Trail water report (a whopping four entries!), but it is critical. From Francis we have 40 miles to our next reliable water source, Willow Spring in China Ranch Wash. Just like Burro Spring, we will have to go for broke with Francis Spring.

Jet Fighter and I spend most of the day outside the post office. A Mojave ranger stops and chats with us. She sounds quite skeptical when we tell her we came from Fenner, but after telling her our route she just seems worried for us. It sure doesn't help our morale with the upcoming section.

In the late afternoon we walk over to a rest area to grab enough water to get us to Francis Spring. This rest area sucks. The gas station is only taking cash for some reason so there's a huge line, and it's generally chaotic and overwhelming inside. We grab 8 litres each as fast as possible and charge back out into the desert. We hike out three or four miles to the wilderness boundary, enough to put some distance between us and Baker. Jet Fighter and I practice pitching our tarps, trying to set them up together to form a full pyramid shelter. I can't believe we've made it this far, made it all the way to Baker. I sure hope Francis Spring has water.