June 14

I have been putting in a series of 25 milers to catch up with a good group of friends who I want to go through the Sierra with. I am hoping to catch them before they enter the high country.It was too hot today while I was completely exposed, a total lack of shade. We worked through a world of Joshua trees and monstorous boulders and loose gravel slopes. It wasn't just the ferocity of the sun but the ground reflecting and amplifying the waves of heat back at me. I my body begin to throb, being irradiated in an ultraviolet bath. By mid-day, while marching on, I had something that resembled an out of body experience as the heat seemed to penetrate my skin and occupy the space inside my limbs and my muscles seemed to work automatically. I was lifted up above, watching myself walking down there on the ground, the heat filling my head. Somehow, I just kept walking.

The heat saps my energy, forcing me to take refuge under a cluster of Joshua trees, which provide scant shade. Inevitably, my body shuts down and I fall asleep for a little while -- there is nothing more strange for a boy from Wisconsin than waking up from a good dream only to remember that you are a speck lying alone in the vast center of the Mojave desert and the sky is so bright when you open your eyes that you might as well be dead, throttling through a tunnel of light towards something unknown.All the caches were full of water today, for which I am grateful it would be a very different desert without those supplies of water left to us by anonymous but sympathetic folks. I doubt that the people leave this water out for us have any clue the degree of immense satisfaction they are delivering. It is true that I am not walking alone, there are others who are watching out for me.

Another night sleeping in the open, two peaks lurk darkly above and a half moon coming up.