Tuesday December 5, 17.9km/11.1mi

Parker Travelodge (445.0/400ft) (AZ) to Whipple Mountains Wilderness (456.1/1320ft) (CA)

I was awake at 7am, because my stomach was telling me it was hungry. Way past usual breakfast time! We walked next door to Stark Family Bakery and bought some sugary calories.

We spent the rest of the morning packing and listening to Christmas movies in the background. This is the longest section of trail yet, at 130 miles. I’m also mailing some food to the town of Amboy CA, so it took me awhile to sort it all out!

I went to the post office and mailed out the food, picked up my new shoes, and then stopped by the laundromat on the way back to do my laundry. By the time I got back to the motel, it was almost noon. Oops. TopShelf left for the post office, and we checked-out of the room, so I sat outside in the courtyard doing phone chores while I waited. Eventually we left town at 2pm, goodbye Parker!

We crossed the bridge over the Colorado River, which is also the state boundary.

Welcome to California!

And welcome to San Bernardino county, where we will be hiking for the rest of this trail. It’s a short but wide county!

Just before we departed the paved roads, I saw one more sign, which was rather hilarious.

After a couple miles of hiking, we joined a dirt road up into the mountains.

I spotted a new variety of prickly pear cactus, this one appears iridescent and doesn’t have spines.

We hiked into the sunset, as we watched the mountains get closer every minute.

Some of the cliffs even had little windows in them!

Now that we are in the Pacific time zone, the sun sets at 4:30, and it’s dark at 5pm. We hiked until 5:30 and camped next to an old road, where it was unfortunately a little windy.