It was only ten miles to
Agua Dulce, my next resupply point, but I knew it was going to be hot the next
day, so I wanted to get away early. I set my internal clock for 3 a.m.
and went to bed. I love my internal clock because it rarely fails me; at
3 a.m. I was wide awake and within a half hour, I was packed up and ready to
move out.
With the aid of my
headlamp, I walked back down the highway until I found the PCT logo that showed
where the trail left the highway and plunged down the embankment and into the
foliage adjacent to the trail. In the first hundred yards from the trail
there was a lot of debris - construction material and abandoned house trailers;
in essence, it looked like a dumping ground for locals.
A much-polluted stream (it turned out this was the Santa Clara River) ran through the underbrush; frogs and crickets and early morning birds called to one another. A set of railroad tracks came into view and I quickly crossed over them and headed up into the mountains. It was peaceful and serene walking in the early morning hours; from high on the mountains, I could see the faint light beams of two headlamps bobbing up and down as two additional early morning hikers made their way up the mountain.
A much-polluted stream (it turned out this was the Santa Clara River) ran through the underbrush; frogs and crickets and early morning birds called to one another. A set of railroad tracks came into view and I quickly crossed over them and headed up into the mountains. It was peaceful and serene walking in the early morning hours; from high on the mountains, I could see the faint light beams of two headlamps bobbing up and down as two additional early morning hikers made their way up the mountain.
Looking back down the
canyon, I could see the lights of the KOA campground and homes scattered along
the Soledad highway.
From the south down
Soledad Canyon, I could hear the whistles of an approaching train, so I stood
and watched as a passenger train advanced, its whistles blaring and its lights
flashing as it moved through street intersections. I love to watch
trains; they always seem so surreal. Within a mile, another early morning
hiker passed me, and way, way up the mountain, I could see hikers as they made
their way up the mountainside
.
By 9:00 a.m. I was
walking along the top of the mountain ridge, and from my vantage point far to
the north, I could see the Antelope Valley Freeway 14 which connected the Los
Angeles area to Lancaster and Mojave, California. Presently, I came upon
two hikers – Faucet and Shark Bite, who were sitting on the ground to the side
of the trail, getting ready to prepare their morning breakfast. It looked
like a great place to stop for the same purpose, so I asked if I could join
them.
“Of course,” they said,
“sit here beside us.”
While they prepared and
ate their hot oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon, I ate my cold, rehydrated
concoction of Idahoan Instant Potatoes, crushed nuts, crushed Frito-Lay chips,
dried tomatoes, and spices. It’s really a pretty good meal; it’s filling
and high in calories, both of which are highly desirable on the trail.
Faucet and Shark Bite were back on the trail before I was, so when I
finally left, I once again walked alone.
From the ridge, it was
all downhill to the freeway, and as I approached the highway, I could see that
traffic heading towards Los Angeles was not moving; well, crawling slower than
a snail’s pace. To get across the freeway, the trail went underneath it
via a giant, metal culvert.
Before the freeway was
built, the trail in this area passed through a rather large ravine that
funneled the occasional flood waters of seasonal rains to lowlands somewhere
farther out in the desert. To accommodate the freeway, this gigantic
gulch had to be filled in, but the trail for both hikers and horses had to be
preserved. The solution was to place a culvert in the gulch big enough
for horses to walk through, and then fill in the ravine with tons and tons of
dirt and gravel to provide a flat surface for the freeway.
Emerging from the
five-hundred-foot-long, ten-foot-high steel tunnel, the trail entered Escondido
Canyon and meandered along a sandy streambed lined with willows and thickets of
squaw bush.
On the north side of the
freeway, the scenery had changed abruptly and the air was noticeably cooler,
probably as a result of the high canyon walls shielding the lower streambed
from the rays of the glaring sun. A large variety of trees, shrubs, and
bushes hugged the flowing stream in an effort to suck up as much water as
possible in order to maintain their radiant mantle of green. Then, as
usual, the trail began an upward climb, passing through multiple layers of
river-deposited rocks known as conglomerate.
Tiburcio Vasquez the Bandido
This noted change in
scenery and rock formation meant I had entered the Vasquez Rock County Park.
This little park was rich in history. It was named after
Mexican/American Bandido Tiburcio Vasquez, who used the unusual rock formations
to hide from the law way back in the 1850s. Vasquez was involved in
numerous robberies, spent a number of years in prison, and was present when
members of his gang shot and killed innocent bystanders.
In 1874, he took up
residence at a friend’s adobe home, located at what is now Melrose Place in
West Hollywood. After a brief shootout with the local sheriff, he was
captured, stood trial in San Jose, California, and was found guilty of murder.
He was sent on his way to the great beyond on March 19, 1875. The
only word he uttered at his hanging was “pronto” – quick. (Tiburcio)
The unique rock
formations of this park have been the background scenery for numerous movies,
i.e., Star Trek (2009); Holes (2003); Planet
of the Apes (2001); and Blazing Saddles (1974); and
as I passed by them, I tried hard to visualize some of the scenes from Planet
of the Apes that had been filmed here. ( Most)
Within a short distance,
I came to Escondido Canyon Road, a major roadway through Agua Dulce. It
was jam-packed with vehicles and people shouting for directions on how to get
to the 14 Freeway. These were drivers who had left the standstill traffic
on the Antelope Valley 14 Freeway and were trying to detour through Agua Dulce
to bypass the delay and get back onto the 14. I would later learn that
the stoppage on the 14 was due to a large, eighteen-wheeler full of meat that
had overturned, blocking all southbound lanes of the 14 Freeway. The
tractor-trailer had to be unloaded by hand before the rig could be uprighted
and moved off the road. I can only assume that it must have been hours
before this mess was cleaned up. Wow! Such is life in the fast lane
in Southern California.
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