JOSHUA TREE TRAVERSE

Left black rock campground with Lani, John, and Nick just as the sun came over the ridge and hit the trailhead. I was carrying 3L of water(a 2L bladder and two Salomon flasks). There was patchy snow above covington flats but the frozen ground made for good early progress. Warmed up quickly and shed my long sleeve shirt for a singlet. The wind was chilly a couple times after that but nothing gloves and arm warmers couldn't handle. I left a couple drawings in the sand for the Lani who was going for the women fkt. Only passed a few groups of hikers. There were four heading up from Ryan campground and gave my card to one named Will Lemmoon at Geology Tour road hoping he can vouch for my fkt attempt (he emailed me later in the day). Faced some stubborn 10mph headwinds for the second half of the run. That combined with the sand made for tedious plodding away. Felt like I wasn't moving hardly at all and got incredibly demotivated when I realized it wasn't all downhill to the finish. It is mostly but the elevation profile is deceptive. Ran out of water 1.5 miles from the end and kept thinking the miles were longer than miles but soon enough I saw the trailhead entrance and followed the rocks lined up towards the end.

I collapsed for a bit and reveled in the fact that it was over, then strapped up and hiked back out to see if I could meet the rest of the crew finishing. After 3 miles I found John and Lani. John is an established thru-hiker that wanted to escape the winter in Utah and try out some trail running. Lani was about to finish the route in a potential female FKT which was something I didn't want to miss. We didn't find out till later that Nick had decided to call it a day.

37.3 miles +3000' 5:10
3L water, 4 Laurabars, 1c Tailwind

Strava GPS route