Oh the infamous Hiker Town. I sent a 2 day resupply to Hiker Town knowing the two days following would be light food weight and heavy water carry for the LA Aqueduct.
What’s the LA aqueduct section? Well according to the lovely internet:
The Los Angeles Aqueduct section of the PCT is a long, flat stretch of trail in the Mojave Desert, typically starting around mile 517 Hiker Town and running until around mile 540 near the Cottonwood Creek Bridge.
It’s famous for the long “aqueduct walk” which is a large part of the covered Los Angeles Aqueduct, which transports water from the Owens Valley to LA. At times you’re literally walking on top of a huge metal or concrete pipe or a buried channel. This section is extremely exposed and very hot, offers very little shade. Most hikers like my self complete this stretch at night or super early in the morning to avoid the heat.
Because it’s one of the flattest sections of the PCT in the right conditions it’s supposedly easy walking, but can feel endless and monotonous.
Inside of the walk I’ll pass near some massive wind farms as we approach Tehachapi Pass. This section is notorious for having little to no water sources so people often carry 4-6 liters of water to get through it safely. 6 liters of water weighs 13.2 pounds.
I roll into hiker town (see all photos) with a hobble from the days prior, I see Audrey, her partner, Vibhu, and Knorwall already there. I last saw them in Big Bear on the city bus when I was going to resupply. I take a seat and Marta comes out to greet me, her and Richard are the owners. She gives me the full tour and tells me to grab a mini house for the night. The winds picking up.
I “check in” to my room and say this is all I need. It’s a roof over my head and a bed with surprisingly good WiFi.
I get back outside to socialize after dropping off my gear, I meet another hiker Dave who’s in his 50s and we decide to score a ride to the market.
We take the 9 minute drive up the road and order burritos and I grab extra snacks. I ask the woman behind the counter to make mine with out beans and she roasts me for it. I thank her for the roasting as it made me feel like home ordering from Regina’s. Great pizza rude staff. While waiting for our food we hang out in the hikers lounge.
After the Neenach market trip it’s back to hiker town to chill and party for the night. I walk the property and check out the mini houses, each one has a different theme. Casino, Barber Shop, Saloon, Tattoo Parlor etc.
The property also has a few friendly dogs that will hang out with you. I think they wanted my burrito, but I won’t feed dogs people food after having to pick up dog poop off the Boston sidewalk. These pups are obviously built different, but none the less a no no to me.
I see Richard the owner and he waves Dave and I over. “How yall doing?” “Great sir how are you?”… “Jump in let’s go.” He says, and we jump into his truck to get some food at the market again. He also owns the market up the street. He takes us to there to eat with him. The banana bread served was on the house. While there we grab a list of groceries from the store they were out of. He was on a resupply mission of his own. Nice! After that it’s around to show us his property and tell us his life story.
He tells us he was a pilot in the Marine Corps air wing, flew for filming movies like Magnum PI and then moved into being a producer of movies and IMAX when that was coming out. Eventually he transitioned into environmental policy and traveled the world working with regulations. He bought a ton of land here when he knew it would be expanding due to new land grants and highways expanding. I’ll talk to this guy all day.
When he bought the property he did not know what the PCT was, he said “homeless people” kept coming to the house asking him for water and then he realized they were hikers not homeless. His wife one day was making lemonade and hotdogs on the grill and a hungry hiker walked up looking absolutely destroyed. She handed him the hotdog snd ice cold lemonade and he said they’ve been helping us dirt dogs ever since. They plopped one tiny shed property down, and then two, and then now there’s over a dozen on site. I am pretty early in the season I think only 20 hikers have signed the log book before me so it’s not too busy. Again I started only 8 days into the “season.” But come May there will be over 50 hikers here a day.
Richard asks if I want to take the trip to Walmart in Lancaster and then swing towards LA, we can grab some steaks and beer, some extra to grill up later. He has a meeting later he says and we’ll swing back after that. I politely decline, that’s too much travel for me. Dave (Stealthy) the other guy I was with says “sure let’s do it.” I jump out of the truck back at his house and decide to chill out for the day. A zero day at hiker town. The next sections a night hike and I’m waiting to grab a package when Richard gets back. He controls the package deliveries here and I got something for everybody.
Hours later Dave comes back with Marta, they got a flat tire, went to Costco, Home Depot and a grocery store. Now we’re going to Richard’s other project house to help him move something. Which ended up being where they are going to move Hiker Town to. The PCT is allegedly being rerouted and will follow down towards this other house through Tejone Pass. I think in 3-4 years it’ll be an awesome spot and I think touring the trail that way makes more sense.
Richard asks us to spend the night there. He says the darkness where it’s more remote offers amazing skylines and again we both decline. Dave and I take a good walk through and look around and then ask what chores he wanted done. The properties awesome but it’s in no condition for me to stay in.
Cement board Richard says. There is 250 of them needing to be moved out of the back of his pickup truck into the living room. His plan is to redo the entire house. Richard’s 85, so him lifting them is off the table. They are 35lbs a piece, not too heavy but at 4’x3’ they’re awkward. He had three guys coming tomorrow to do it but he needs his truck empty tonight for tomorrow morning. Ok Dave let’s go we’re going to two man this. You stack them off the truck and I’ll load them into the house.
It took us a little bit longer than we wanted but we earned our dinner and stay tonight. Marta’s there and we tell her we’re ready to go back to hiker town. Her and Richard are arguing about something seems business related. We kind’ve step in the middle thinking if we don’t we’ll never leave. She takes us back where we hang out and eat dinner for the night. My second car sick experience of the day as we blast down the dirt roads and actually ran over a rattle snake in the process.
We get back to hiker town and it gets dark quickly, Tardy shows up with Rennaisance. Dave and I sit there laughing about the absolute shenanigans of a day we had. He pulls out a rotisserie chicken that Richard gave us. Huh? Where’d that even come from… Dave gives the chicken to Tardy for dinner. He says he’s never cut one up, I teach him how to slay a rotisserie. I keep in mind him being 18-19 he’s still green on life.
We’re all going to zero tomorrow and wait for some more people to get here. As we head into our bunks for the night I snag a photo to remember the evening. Just a couple lads sleeping with the spiders and mouse shit in poor lighting.
I wake up and spend the morning packing up and hydrating, I plan to leave around 4PM and hike all night long until the next day. We take a few trips back and forth to the store but otherwise is a full day of just chilling. 4 PM rolls around and we leave. Good bye to hikertown, Marta and Richard really treated us like we were friends. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be back but I am going to call Richard about some fuel additive he’s working on when I get done with the trail.
The Pacific Crest Trail 