The last leg of our current section of trail took us out of the desert and over the foothills into Tehachapi, where we ended at the intersection of the PCT and Highway 58. I had been told that there were some trail washouts in this portion, but they turned out to be very minor areas where some rain runoff had created small ditches across the trail. Back in October there was a dramatic deluge that created huge mudslides in this area, closing parts of Highway 58 and even some of Interstate 5. And enormous "firehose" of water during just an hour or so sent rivers of mud flowing over the roads and into people's homes, and clearly the trail also was impacted, but thankfully none of it was deep or treacherous, and Shyla was able to easily simply step across the places where the washouts were. At the end of the day, my mom met us with the trailer, and she brought a 5 gallon container of water with her, which Shyla gratefully drank before we headed home for another couple days of rest. We are also scheduled to get some new shoes, as even in just these few days on the trail, we have worn our shoes paper-thin, especially on the toes. We're going to get our farrier, Joe Vaca, to put on special borium-coated shoes to try to prevent the next set from wearing down so quickly.

#2016PCT