Outdoor Adventures with Ancient Brit
PCT 2002 - May 16th
Day 37: Thursday 16th May
Gamble Spring Canyon – Cameron Ridge
I hardly got any sleep last night as my tent was bombarded by gale force gusts of wind,
until the wind suddenly dropped at dawn. The trail gradually worked its way down to
Tehachapi Pass over dry sandy hillsides criss-crossed with trail bike tracks. In places trail-
bike riders, illegally riding on the PCT, had caused severe erosion and corrugations to the
sandy trail making walking hard work.
I stopped for lunch at Oak Creek where I spent time with Mary and “Honey Bear” who
were waiting for their husbands. “Billy Goat” and “Cloudwalker” arrived about an hour
later. They had bivvied in Tylerhorse Canyon and had got even less sleep than me as they
weren’t carrying tents and suffered even more from the wind.
The Tehachapi Pass area on the edge of the Mojave Desert is one of the windiest places
in California and the area was a “forest” of wind turbines. I eventually camped on the
windy Cameron Ridge in the shelter of Juniper bushes within 100 yards of a line of wind
turbines. The wind turbines made a lot of noise to add to the noise of the wind that had
got up again. Today had been hard because I had had a headache in the afternoon and the
instep on my left foot had started hurting badly.
Day 37: 16.5 miles 7.37 hours Camp: Cameron Ridge
Gamble Spring Canyon – Cameron Ridge
I hardly got any sleep last night as my tent was bombarded by gale force gusts of wind,
until the wind suddenly dropped at dawn. The trail gradually worked its way down to
Tehachapi Pass over dry sandy hillsides criss-crossed with trail bike tracks. In places trail-
bike riders, illegally riding on the PCT, had caused severe erosion and corrugations to the
sandy trail making walking hard work.
I stopped for lunch at Oak Creek where I spent time with Mary and “Honey Bear” who
were waiting for their husbands. “Billy Goat” and “Cloudwalker” arrived about an hour
later. They had bivvied in Tylerhorse Canyon and had got even less sleep than me as they
weren’t carrying tents and suffered even more from the wind.
The Tehachapi Pass area on the edge of the Mojave Desert is one of the windiest places
in California and the area was a “forest” of wind turbines. I eventually camped on the
windy Cameron Ridge in the shelter of Juniper bushes within 100 yards of a line of wind
turbines. The wind turbines made a lot of noise to add to the noise of the wind that had
got up again. Today had been hard because I had had a headache in the afternoon and the
instep on my left foot had started hurting badly.
Day 37: 16.5 miles 7.37 hours Camp: Cameron Ridge
Wind turbines,
Tehachapi Pass
Tehachapi Pass
Wind turbines,
Tehachapi Pass
Tehachapi Pass
Camp on
Cameron Ridge
Cameron Ridge
 |  |
| |