26.5 miles
Today was a little nuts.
The first 15 miles were completely flat, through the desert, along the California aqueduct. Luckily, the weather was cooling off this week. There was also a slight breeze and a large cloud in the sky which blocked the sun in the morning which kept the temperature low.
It was a little boring walking in a perfectly straight line for 5 hours but it was nice finally heading north after spending the last 200 miles heading almost west.
At lunch time the wind had really picked up, and we took shelter behind some aqueduct buildings. When we finally started moving again, the wind had REALLY picked up. We were walking through the middle of a wind farm full of huge wind turbines. The wind was a steady 60mph with gusts even higher than that. There was no protection from the wind anywhere in the gigantic field we were in. No trees, no bushes, no hills. To makes things worse the wind was at our face or our side the entire time.
Walking was difficult, everyone was staggering around trying to walk in a straight line. It was difficult to even stay on the trail. I had to walk with a constant lean to the left in a cross wind, then a gust would come and I would be blown off to the right of the trail.
There were times when I was about to plant my trekking pole out in front of me, but the wind would blow it to the side and I would again awkwardly stumble off trail as a result.
The worst was when a gust full of sand hit. I was wearing my rain jacket, hood up, headphones in, but also wearing my shorts because it was still slightly warm. The sand would sting my legs like it was getting hit with birdshot.
We all were a bit frustrated in this section. We finally made it to our camp spot for the night around 8pm. I built a nice little spot behind some bushes to block out the wind. Once we were all settled in our spots and laid down, the wind stopped completely.
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