Twig Adventures

Saturday, March 1st 2025, 0610-1400Weaver’s Well to Najah’s Hi Sahara Desert Oasis Gas Station, Fenner, I-40 mm129, End Section 6. Elevation 2080′.22 miles. My jacked-up shoulder was pretty sore in the morning. But my more pressing concern was what the alkaline water was doing to my plumbing. As happy as I was to find the water, there was a small price to pay. Yet another benefit of hiking alone is that one doesn’t have to go far from their tent to did a cathole. As in, just feet away. Thank goodness, because I came very close to finally becoming a real thru-hiker! Not yet though. That good old alkaline water, it sure gets a morning off to an early and expedient[…]

Friday, Feb 28th 2025, 0600-1730West Turtle Mtns Wilderness Boundary to Weaver’s Well, mm107, Section 626 miles. I thought the previous 2 days were going to be the hardest in this section, but this day had a little mishap that also made it tough, but I got through it and kept going. I started early, trying to avoid the heat through a long, low and sandy crossing of the Ward Valley. I passed by the first guzzler along the route thus far (because I took the HWY 95 cache alt), which I didn’t bother to check since it was almost half a mile off the route. I had a gallon of water from my cache left still. The road I was[…]

Thursday, Feb 27th 2025, 0600-1710HWY 95 to west Turtle Mtns Wilderness Boundary mm79, Section 624 miles. The wind picked up even more overnight, so I decided to put my tent into ‘bivy mode’ to reduce the flapping. I discovered this trick on past hikes. I just have to remove my center trekking pole, leaving everything else as is. I don’t mind having the walls collapsed on top me… it’s probably even extra insulation against the cold. I also took a Benadryl and put my ear plugs in, both because of the noise of the highway and the wind. All these hacks worked brilliantly. I was dead to the world most of the night. In the morning, I reinserted my pole so[…]

Wednesday, Feb 26th 2025, 0540-1740Whipple Wash to HWY 95 mm3, Section 6A24 miles. The wind started blowing pretty hard in the middle of the night, flapping my tent annoyingly. I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I just started packing. Even though the time had changed by 1 hour, I was still waking up just before dawn…that just so happened to be before 5 am now. I needed all the time I could get this day, as I knew it would be a long and hard one. I would be climbing to a ridge, navigating the high country for something like 8 miles, all cross country. It also involved a gain of over 2k’. I’d climbed so[…]