Walking Towards the North Star

Day 48-May 31st
Destination: McIver Springs Cabin
Miles: 23

Last night Apricots and Psycho discussed waking up at 4am, to get an early start on the day. After dinner, Uncle Tom rolled in suggesting a night hike at 3am. This morning, Train woke the crew up at 2:15am, and by 3am, we were packed and moving.

The near full moon provided ample light for our walking. It cast enough light to generate shadows on the far sides of the sagebrush and buckbrush we were walking past. Even though the moon was very bright, it did not drown out the ample display of light from other constellations and stars. The tread was soft sandy grit, free of rocks, so at times we looked away from the trail and it's surrounds to see a brilliant display of light.

As the sun slowly rose on us, we looked upon the silhouetted joshua trees acting as hilltop fractals reaching into the amber red horizon. The light was just beginning to shine upon parts of the hillside, and the purple lupines stood out as the glowed in the light of dawn.

Just before the sun crested, the seven of us (NonStop, Uncle Tom, Sir Richard Wizard, General Lee, Train, Apricots, and Psycho) took shelter from the wind and watched the sun rise over the hills to the east. After a brief pause of time, we continued our descent down to the water cache. We had covered nine miles, and it was only 7am.

After a breakfast (which was more like lunch), we made a 1700 foot climb, gradually working our way to 7000 feet. Slowly dropping down on the other side of the hill, we ate lunch at 11am, and made plans to finish our day at McIver Springs Cabin, a short 9 miles away.

By this time, the early start on the day was beginning to catch up on Psycho. With the heat, he was feeling exhausted. To pass time, Apricots came up with two characters for a story, and Psycho built a long detailed story about Tim the Horned Toad and Shelly the Tortoise. While the story helped pass time, it was not enough, so Apricots asked for a story about a mountain goat and a magic carpet.

Moments later, the trail reached a rarely used jeep road. The moment we hit the road, our mountain goat and magic carpet arrived. Two gold prospectors driving a beat up pick up truck asked if we knew where McIvers Spring Cabin was. We hopped in the back of the truck and directed them the final few miles down the road to the cabin.

Once at the cabin, we shed our dusty sweaty clothing and washed them in the spring. We then made a four o'clock dinner and laid out our bed under the stars. Exhausted from rising early, we will go to sleep early tonight and likely get an early start tomorrow as well, just not 3am early.
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