I Thought You Guys Were Moving Joshua Trees

So we decided that it would be a good idea to night hike the LA Aquaduct section. It's a long 17 mile waterless and shadeless stretch and it's not a pleasant experience in the middle of the day. We hung out at Hikertown all day and finally got going with Shutterburst, Busted Magic, David and Britt. We walked in pairs, with Shutter and Magic taking off in front and us in the middle. You walk for a while along this big cement aquaduct and then along a dirt road for a whole chunk before returning to follow the aquaduct, only this time it's completely covered and underground and you're essentially walking on top of it. It winds its way out to the middle of nowhere and can become a little monotonous, but it was exciting for us as it would be our first night hike. It was nearly a full moon, so headlamps were more or less unnecessary. As it got darker, We could no longer see the two in front of us and Britt and David hadn't passed us, so we were still in our little bubble. It was pretty neat. Very comfortable temperature and easy walking. After a while we could see a big fire in the distance and thought it was a bit odd because there weren't many houses along the stretch at all. As we neared, we could see a bunch of old, crappy trailers and a group of country dudes just hanging out, drinking, shooting guns and having a big bonfire. We looked in and didn't see the others so we just hammered right by and kept going. EVENTUALLY we caught the two in front of us, which was comforting for us to be in a bigger pack because Shutterburst has a GPS and there were some tricky turns we had to take. Immediately we started talking about the little party going on back there and they confirmed that what we heard were in fact gun shots. The bonfire was so big that you could see it from more than a mile away, and probably unsafe because of the wind and because of how dry everything is out here. What was weird was that as we walked, we kept looking back at the fire and it started to look like it was growing. All four of us were convinced that it started to spread and get out of control. This continued for a good while, but I started to think that maybe what we thought was a spreading fire was actually lights way in the distance that were coming into view as we walked uphill ever so slightly. We never did solve that mystery.

A little while later we saw headlights coming from behind us and so we all jumped off the road. It was a couple of guys in an ATV, whizzing up and down the dirt road, no doubt hammered. Ten minutes or so later they came back towards us and so I just turned on my headlamp and shined it on the ground so they knew we were there. As they drove by, you could hear the sound of a paintball gun that the passenger was shooting into randomness. Luckily they just drove right by and kept goin'. Layer we found out from Britt and David that they almost got shot! At the last second the guy realized they were there and didn't shoot, saying to them 'dude I almost shot you in the face!' So after that little bit of excitement, we continued along in the darkness, the four of us, just trying to make this bridge so we could get some sleep. Just as all the nerves of that earlier stuff calms down, a vehicle with no headlights in comes barreling down the road towards us. Everyone jumped off the road, again, at the last second and the station wagon swerved away from us. He slammed his breaks, rolled down his window and apologized, satin that he though we were 'moving Joshua trees' and wanted to offer us a 'consolation beer'. He was clearly drunk and high. We just reminded him that he should have his headlights on and continued on our way. His quotes provided enough entertainment for the rest of the walk.

As we neared the bridge, maybe 2 -2.5 miles away, the winds picked up significantly. Sometimes a sidewind, sometimes a headwind, but always a strong wind. All of us were exhausted, it was well after midnight and we no longer cared if we made it to the bridge. We found a little spot off the road that was a little bit sheltered from the wind and called it home. A tent store no chance for staying up, so we all cowboy camped in the the shelter of our sleeping bags and it wasn't half bad!!

Awesome first night hike.