Sunday, June 1, 2008

Bird Spring Pass to Walker Pass. 18 miles, 652 miles total.

From Walker Pass, you can hitch a ride to Onyx or to Lake Isabella. I decided to try to make it to Lake Isabella for Pizza. I was hitching with Outback and Pippi. It seemed to take forever to get a ride in the early afternoon, but really it only took about 45 minutes. The first ride in a nice truck had some weekend backpackers, but they didn't take us the whole way.

The next ride didn't take as long ... maybe 10 minutes, and he took us all the way to the Pizza Factory / Right Aid / Von's. My first stop was the Pizza Factory, and the pizza was very good!

Next I went to Right Aid, and was able to download my photos to CD's. That's always a good thing. Then I went to Von's to round out my food purchases. My pack is very heavy, but at least I won't be going hungry out on the trail.

It was about 6:00 pm, and I really didn't want to stay at the motel in town, so I decided to get a quick milkshake from Burger King and hitch back to Walker Pass Camp Ground. It didn't take too long to get a ride, but they were only going as far as Onyx. They dropped me at the gas station, and even though it was starting to get dusk, there was a lot of traffic, and I didn't think it would take too long to get a ride the 9 miles to the campground. WRONG! At least 50 cars past by, and not one of them would stop. After it was dark, I was standing the light of the gas station, and I had my headlamp on flashing mode, so I know that people could see me, but no one was willing to take a chance on picking up a hitch-hiker at night.

I ended up walking about 2 miles up the road and camping about 30 yards from the road on a bluff. I didn't sleep too go because there was traffic during the night.