We didn’t get the best sleep last night – the wind was so loud that it kept waking us up. The cold always makes it hard to get up but eventually we roused ourselves and set off back into the wind. It wasn’t as strong as it had been yesterday on the ridge but it was close. As we came down out of the mountains and away from the protecting ridges it got harder and harder to move forward around the bluffs. We started passing close to some of the many windmills in the Mojave/Tehachapi area. The clouds were still very turbulent and off to the north we could see them dropping a rainy mist. We were drizzled on as we dropped to the canyon floor and headed up Oak Creek towards the road.

Our timing was right on – just as we reached the intersection to hitch into Mojave a hiker ahead of us snagged a ride. It turned out that the guy who picked us up is one of the people who maintains the nice water cache we passed yesterday. He only had time to take us into Tehachapi, but we didn’t have to wait long to catch a cheap bus to Mojave. On the way into town we passed the huge airplane graveyard out in the desert. It seems strange to store planes out in this environment. Isn’t all the dust and wind bad for them? The winds were still unusually strong down here and walking up and down the Main Street in town to do our chores was a real challenge. We ate a lot of grit. We’re now holed up in our room, nice and clean, and relieved to be out of the wind as it rattles our window. Feeling pretty cozy…

– Posted from the PCT

Location:Pct mile 558