Quick Change Artist-Tuesday. April 22

How can conditions change so fast? Yesterday we were sweltering in the heat. Today, it is fleece on, gusty winds and chilly. A very dramatic change-and welcome! High clouds obscured the sun for the entire morning making hiking very enjoyable.
We left the comfort of water at Tule Springs (we actually bathed a bit the night before) about 4:30am by head lamp light with a short day on our agenda to rest Sally's painful foot. Luckily, the pain had shrunk overnight from a level of 6 to 1. 6 miles ahead lay the water cache at mile 143.

The trail wound down to Nance Canyon 3 miles ahead where we stopped to cook some Cream o Wheat for breakfast in the early morning light. Just as we were finishing up Far Out caught up with us. He had slept in a bit.
We climbed out of Nance and soon passed "The Guzzler", a cistern dug into the desert. It appeared to be made of fiberglass, covered in cement, the top flush with the desert floor. Someone had recently put a shiny chrome pump in its top, but it did not work when I pumped with it. We still had plenty of water from Tule, and knew water lay ahead at the cache, so we continued on.
About a mile from the cash we got cell service again and with it our email of the past 24 hours. We stopped to place a few calls, then continued to the cache.
We found Far Out had been waiting at the cache about 45 minutes for us when we finally got to the wood constructed rack holding many 2.5 gallon water jugs. As I was finishing up filling water bottles a 20 yr old showed up, a traveling guitar sticking out of his pack. With our encouragement he offered to play for us. He started with "Alice's Restaurant", then slipped into "Old Man" by Niel Young. He did not have a trail name yet, so we christened him "Alice" which he seemed to like and signed the trail register by that name and was soon gone.
With enough water for the rest of the day, that night, and the 7 miles we had to cover tomorrow, we left the cache and walked 1 mile to a magnificent campsite amongst large boulders, arriving about noon. The wind had been howling all day, and it continued to gust and swirl around the boulders as we set up camp, took naps and greeted Crotalus into camp. An afternoon of conversation, food and greeting another 7 people into the now more crowded campsite occupied our afternoon. Far Out found a 3 foot gopher snake and Crotalus, being a herpetologist, gave us a lesson on snakes. She is amazingly knowledgable, having worked extensively in this area with studies and the protection of snakes, lizards and the desert tortoise. Crotalus had a very sore ankle way back in Warner Springs, now 36 miles back. She had a brace on that helped her make it this far. She was making her way to Palm Springs with the hope of a few lay over days to let the ankle heal before continuing north up the trail. She is one tough person!!

The cool wind continued all afternoon and night, blustering our tent and filling every nook and cranny with sand.