Sunday December 17, 40.1km/24.9mi
Mojave Trails National Monument (693.5/680ft) to Sheephole Valley Wilderness (718.4/2120ft) (CA)
It was a pretty uneventful day, just a bunch of easy miles across the low desert. We started at 5:45am and hiked toward a very vivid sunrise.
After an hour, we crossed the big paved road that goes to Amboy, and had a nice morning of cross-country hiking, with the Bristol Dry Lake on our left side.
TopShelf and I regrouped at a dirt road junction, and spent the rest of the morning heading southwest in a perfectly straight line along the utility road.
We stopped for lunch near the end of the road, and enjoyed the warm sunshine. The solar panels loved it too, and our phones were mostly charged by the time we packed up. The afternoon was more cross-country hiking thru some sparse creosote bushes.
We arrived at our first water source since town, 32 miles ago. The quail guzzler was full of water, and that was a relief. We spent awhile filling all our bottles, since it’s another 28 miles to the next water.
The remaining two hours of the day was spent hiking up and down three little passes, usually using washes for ease of travel.
The views from the passes were surprisingly good, given how little we had climbed.
The view from the last pass of the day!
From there it was another mile to our planned camp spot, and I made it just before darkness set in at 5pm. A lot of miles, but an easy day!