Hitch #10: Pacific Crest Trail Monitoring

For our 10th hitch my crew was tasked with monitoring/inventorying the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). We split into two teams to cut the amount of trail to monitor into two 47 miles sections. Rosy and I volunteered for the southern section which was supposed to be tougher because of the lack of water sources, the heat and the numerous OHV (off-highway vehicle) intrusions on the trail. That left Miz, Monika and Kevin for the northern section. The plan was to meet at a spring in between the two starting points in 5 days.

A map I made of Rosy's and my trip using the GPS data we collected. I plotted the OHV intrusions (yellow dots) to give you and idea of how bad a problem it is.


Our packs were heavy because we had to carry water for two and a half days for drinking and cooking. Our first guaranteed water was 22 miles from the start. Adding more weight was the extra gear we had to take to perform the monitoring including the GPS device with extra batteries and charging equipment, a heavy two way radio and a thick pack of paper to take notes on. To add even more weight we had to carry a sizable first aid kit and water filter. Our saving grace was that after 32 miles we crossed a major highway where we left our truck with half our water, food and gear. The other crew had to carry everything from the start although they split gear between three people and didn't have to carry as much water since there were more water sources.

The first day we met at the field office and talked with the BLM folk about the mission. After all the discussion, planning and driving we made it to the trailhead at about 2:30pm. We got in about 5 miles that afternoon which was nice because that day didn't count towards our 5 days. We realized that night that neither of us knew how to work our stove very well. Either that or the pump was broken. We never got it to work during the trip. We opted to make a small cooking fire instead which worked well. We also realized that our radio didn't work so we wouldn't be able to communicate for our 6pm check-in with the other team.

The next day we headed from the valley into the hills. It wasn't long before we were stopping every 50-100 meters to collect data on an OHV intrusion. You can see in the map above the mass of yellow dots between the first two camp sites. It was really ridiculous how many there were. If we were really to mark every one we would have stopped even more frequently.

Dirtbikers tearing up a whole new area! They are considered the greatest threat to the Desert if not all wilderness areas in the US.


It was often a challenge to stay on the PCT because OHVers had made it indistinguishable from their trails in many places. We came to a small hill that had a route on either side and one going straight over. Since there was no route marker we choose the right path which ended up being the wrong route. After awhile we discovered this and found our way back to the trail.

Also in this area there were many trail washouts. The trail was completely gone due to erosion. Most washouts occurred in a sandy section where it is nearly impossible to maintain a trail. It was not easy walking through these with heavy packs.

One of the 23 washouts we hiked through and documented. The whole trail is sloped with no horizontal surface to walk on and in the middle you can't even see signs of a trail anymore.


Near the end of the day we approached a higher elevation (>5000 ft) area and came across our first snow. Since we got to it late in the day it was soft and we sunk in most steps we took.

Rosy knee deep


Fortunately, we were able to find a pretty nice clearing to set up camp. As we were running low on water we improvised and melted snow for our cooking water and a little to drink as well.

Night 2 camp site


The following day we started out in the higher elevation pine forest with hopes that we'd seen the last of the OHV intrusions. At this point we had entered the radius of the burn area from the August 07 fire. Unfortunately the OHV intrusions didn't cease. As it turns out OHVers like to destroy forests as well as deserts!

Many OHV intrusions and burned up signs combined for a very hard to find trail. At one point we found ourselves at a dead end looking down a very steep slope and we knew at that point we weren't on the trail anymore. We looked out into the distance and saw that the trail was actually about 300 meters away on the next ridge. We decided to stop taking line data at that point until we were back on the trail. In the map above you can see the break in the red line between night 2 and 3.

In the afternoon we descended out of the mountains and into an extremely windy valley where there were hundreds of wind turbines. Here we arrived at our first water source. Originally we had planned to camp there but we got there early and since it was cold and windy, sitting around camp wouldn't be fun. We hiked on into the wind. It was about 4pm although the cloud cover made it seem like dusk when we found a refuge from the wind. We camped in a perfect ditch/wash with a large thicket for a wind block and firewood.

The morning we had a short 5 mile hike to highway 58 where our vehicle was stashed. Unfortunately our GPS battery died so didn't get data for that stretch. We made it to the truck before 10 AM and gorged ourselves on extra food we had stashed there. Since we only had 16 more miles to the rendezvous point and two days to get there we decided to take the rest of the day off. We spent the night at a county park in the mountains where we had a hell of a time starting a fire. The wood was so damp from the snow melt that it took us three tries to get one going even with the stove gas. Even then we had to constantly fan it to keep it going. Thankfully we only needed to bring water to a boil for the meal we ate.

The next morning we drove back to 58 and started the last leg of our journey. After a 1 mile flat section the next 6 miles were uphill. Eventually the trail leveled off as we hiked along a ridge. At one point on the trail we came across some interesting tracks. They were about 3 inches long and wide. I saw no claw marks present so I determined that they were Mountain Lion tracks. I didn't take the time to take a really good picture, but maybe you can see a track in the picture below.

A Mountain Lion track?


The next day we hiked 5 miles to the rendezvous point arriving early at about 10 AM. The original plan was for us all to hike 16 miles back to our vehicle at 58 the following morning. We arrived early hoping that the other team would be there too so we could knock off some miles making the final day less than 16 miles.

When we got to the meeting point it was a relief to see their camp set up. After all we hadn't communicated with them as planned for 5 days since our radio didn't work. They were however no where to be found. We sat around all day waiting for them. We were a little upset that they blew our chance to cut our 16 mile day down to 10 or 12.

When they finally came back we heard their interesting story. It turns out that 20 miles into their trip they were in such deep snow that they routinely lost the trail and had wet, cold feet all day. The final straw was when they woke up and there boots and socks were frozen stiff. They had to start a fire to thaw them out. They bailed on the assignment and hitchhiked to their truck. The beautiful part was that their truck was parked a quarter mile up the road from the rendezvous point so we didn't have to hike the 16 miles to our truck at all.

We drove out and I ate 4 Arby's roast beef sandwiches.

The End

My Cunning* Moccasins

I finished my new pair of moccasins yesterday. They feel great. They feel like thick socks in a way. I customized them to my feet. There's no need to break them in! Three of my crew mates are still working on theirs. We pooled money to buy the materials so we could get a better deal. The materials cost about $25 but there is lots of extra material left over.

I based my pattern on the second one on this webpage: NativeTech. Each moccasin comprises four pieces of leather plus one leather lace. I used buffalo leather for the sole which is about twice as thick as the golden colored deer leather that makes up the rest (upper, cuff, tongue).



Thick buffalo leather for the sole makes the moccasin more durable and comfortable especially in the desert where there exist more prickily plants. Since it is less flexible and more expensive than deer leather I didn't use if for the whole moccasin.

I purposely made the sole piece wrap up off the ground both to protect my feet, but more importantly to protect the stitching. I hope the stitching will last longer since it shouldn't be touching the ground much. The thread is actually artificial thread used for making bowstring so I'm not too worried about it. Another advantage of this design is that when the sole wears out I can replace it without having to make a whole new pair of mocassins. I already cut up a back up pair of soles for this purpose.

As shown in the pattern on the NativeTech page, the edge of the upper piece is folded over before it is stitched to the sole. The thread goes through the upper piece twice before attaching to the sole. This makes for a sturdier connection. In the picture below you can see this.

This picture makes it look like I have a clown shoe on.


For the lacing, I cut a long thin strip of leather. I chose to have the mocassins lace up like shoes. The lace zig-zags through the tongue piece and pulls the cuff piece tight. I like this style because no lacing has to wrap around the back of my heel or leg. My first pair of mocassins had a lacing that wrapped around my achiles tendon which was awkward for movement.

While I'm not thrilled about the golden yellow color (I was hoping it would be colored more like the sole), I am pleased with the design, fit and comfort. I plan to try them out in the field soon.

*Inside joke: When playing our homemade game of Apples to Apples, my green card was "cunning" to which "moccasins" was my best option.

Hitch #8: North Algodones Dunes

The work we did on this hitch was water monitoring again so I wasn't going to post about it, but it was kinda awesome because we spent one day in sand dunes.

It was one of my favorite days of hiking because the weather was warm enough to go shirtless and shoeless. The sand felt so nice on my feet. Another cool thing about the dunes is how easy it is to track animals there. One rabbit we spooked left a pretty amazing trail with a distance of 10 feet or more between one set of tracks. The most common things we saw were beetles that left a trail that looked like a bicycle track.



Rosy and I spent a lot of time playing around in the dunes. Some were 25 feet or more tall. I liked to jump off them knowing that I'd have a soft landing.



It was cool to finally experience the type of ecosystem so often thought of when the word "desert" comes to mind.

Calling the rain

Today I hope to finish my new moccassins which I will post about next.

Activities Since December

It's been awhile since my last post. I've been on two more hitches since then and tomorrow I will start my next one near Yuma, CA. I also got to spend two full weeks back in Muncie, IN for winter break. While there I got to do some bow shooting with my brother, cousin and her husband. We found an old basketball and used it to do moving target shooting. It was fun.

While there I also continued tanning the deer hide I started back in March of last year. After saturating the skin in egg yolk for a day I began to dry it. First I rang it out to get as much moisture out as possible. In the picture below I'm stretching the skin as it dries out.

Stretching the skin



The skin has to be stretched until it is completely dry so that it does not become stiff. To speed the drying process I used a fan to blow hot air from the space heater onto the skin.

The skin ended up drying too fast and became stiff in parts. I bagged it up and took it back to California. While back here in California I soaked the skin and did the drying and stretching process again. This time the skin was mostly softer but still somewhat stiff in areas.

I haven't decided if I will soak and dry it for a third time or just smoke it.

The skin starting to dry


A bunch of the SCA folks spent a day and night in Joshua Tree National Park last week. We had a good time rock climbing. Below is a montage of one of the cooler boulders I climbed. The following day a few of us drove and hiked to a hot spring in the San Bernadino National Forest. It was beautiful soaking in a natural hot tub in the desert next to a creek.

Climbing montage


I've started working on a few other projects I hope to post about in the future. For one project Rosy and I collected clay and hope to fire some pots in our backyard. Four of us are also going to make moccasins soon. We received a nice piece of buffalo skin in the mail today for the soles.

Hitch #4: Santa Rosa Mountains

For our 4th hitch our goal was to locate and document natural water sources in the Santa Rosa Mountains. We were given aerial maps with approximate spring locations marked on them. In addition our GPS device had those approximate locations loaded in the navigation feature. Basically each day we walked up a different canyon using our GPS device to locate one or more possible water sources.

In each case finding the spot marked in the GPS device meant leaving the relatively easy terrain of the canyon and path finding up the canyon walls. Some situations were more difficult than others. Our first canyon was pretty rough. After hiking up the canyon about 3 miles our teams split into two groups so we could attempt to document groups of water sources in two different areas.

The farther group of water sources was another 3+ miles away and it was already past noon so we knew fading sunlight was going to be a problem. We decided that Kevin and Rosy would jog to the water sources with minimal supplies and I would following up at a slower pace with extra gear.

They jogged off with one liter of water, the GPS unit, a layer of warm clothes and few emergency supplies. I followed with all my stuff and extra water. Our plan was for them to mark where they left the canyon floor. Using that point I would then attempt to intercept them on their return from the water sources.

It was fun for me to track them through hard packed sand of the canyon floor. Unfortunately I was concentrating on it so hard that I missed their sign. To complicate things I found tracks that kept going that must have been someone else's. I followed those tracks until I lost those as well.

After wandering around a little I realized how inadequate the aerial map was in my situation. I pretty much had no idea how I would intercept them. I headed back to where we left their packs to meet them. I waited for about three hours as the sun went down and it got cold. I was pretty worried because I thought they should be back sooner and I knew they didn't have much water.

I finally started walking back up the canyon to see if I could find them. After 30 minutes of walking I saw their headlamps rounding the bend. It was a relief, but it wasn't over because we still had 3 miles to walk in the dark. It was a long day but we made it back safely.

That was our most intense day by far. The rest of the hitch was interesting as well. Kevin and Miz both had to leave the field with injuries after the second night so Rosy, Monika and I hiked the rest of the canyons with help from a BLM employee one of the days.

Left to right: Rosy, me, Monika


Climbing a dry waterfall in search of water.


It rained all day for one of our hikes. Luckily it wasn't too cold because each of us got wet, despite having waterproof gear on. We hiked into a canyon as far as we could go and came across a pretty cool oasis. There was no standing water despite the lushness.


Faulty waterproof jacket


Tomorrow we leave to do more water monitoring near Needles. It actually snowed at my house today. I didn't know that could happen in the desert. Hopefully we don't get rain on this trip... or snow!