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At last! We had gotten out the house. A California winter and spring is normally nothing to complain about, particularly for someone who grew up in New England. Well, I’ve been complaining. I admit it. We had something like 25 days of rain in March, and April hasn’t really turned it around yet. Reservoirs are brimming, levees are percolating, and the mountains just keep on avalanching. I’d had enough, and started to look south for some mountains to hike.
After posting on SummitPost looking for some ideas, I settled upon Tehachapi and Double Mountains. Double had the attraction of over 3,000 feet of prominence, enough to break the top 50 for California. I thought that Sunday may look good for Breckenridge, itself a 3,000 foot prominence peak. With the forecast continuing to predict rain and storms for the Bay Area and the Sierra, Chari and I drove south in search of better weather. Luckily, we found it.
We camped indoors at the Motel 6 in Bakersfield on Friday night, and then drove up CA-58 to Tehachapi. Chari was driving so I could work the map, so I had the chance to look around a little bit at the hills, green with grass, decorated with oaks and boulders. I saw one of those California landmark signs for the Tehachapi Loop, and wondered a little bit about what that might be. I settled on some sort of roundabout drive that allowed the driver to take in some scenery without exploring very far outside the automobile. We carried on to the town of Tehachapi, just before the pass at 4,000 ft. Heading south, we drove to Tehachapi Mountain State Park and stopped our car at the gate in the campground. Setting the emergency brake on the hill, we gathered up our packs, equipped with snowshoes, and began to hike up-trail. Bob Burd’s trip report mentioned that he and Matthew Holliman had wandered straight up the hill until crossing an access road. We did about the same, taking off from the nature trail after only a few steps. We dutifully followed the switchbacking road until about 7,000 ft where the road suddenly becomes a trail, and we met a hiker descending with his dog. He told us the trail was well marked by his footsteps through the snow, so we continued on. We reached the main ridge and received a few gusts of wind that dislodged the melting ice that clung to the pine trees. Some had a knack for finding the back of my neck. We found the summit, complete with a red ammo box with a summit register and other goodies.
I could see Double across the valley, with a 700 ft drop to a saddle between us. Chari announced she would wait it out, basking in the sun while I went and continued with my silly hiking endeavor. No problem. We split up the short-wave radios and I plunged down the slopes to the saddle. There was very little snow on the way down, being a south facing slope. I followed paths that had been dug into the earth presumably by the forestry trade. They crossed back and forth, so I would follow one or jump the banks as I saw fit. I hopped over a drainage rather than going all the way over to the true saddle and picked up another road on the other side. I used it for a contour before reascending to the ridge and finding a road up there, too. This road switchbacked its way to the top, crossing into snowy territory about 200 ft below the summit. About 100 ft below the summit, I was plunging through the slushy snow and gave up the struggle. Out came the snowshoes, and I thought I would be indestructible. Not so. I just sank through 8 in. of slush with each step and tried to pull and extra 10 lbs of water up when I tried to extricate the foot. It was a very slow finish to the top(s). Of course, Double has a double summit; cartographers aren’t known for flat-out lying to you when they come up with these names. I went to the farther one first, adorned with radio towers. I came back to the other, clear summit, which had a few views back to Tehachapi Peak and the Central Valley below. Clouds coming up from the west limited my views to nearby peaks. It was good to be back on top of things again.
I radioed over to Chari, who could see me on the peak across the valley. I started down through the snow/slush and reached the lower road quickly. This time I followed it nearly to the true saddle before it wrapped around the drainage. Regaining Tehachapi was a difficult and trying task. My hip flexors weren’t cooperating and I was just flat-tired. Maybe I shouldn’t have carried both pairs of snowshoes up the first mountain in my zeal for training. Well, that’s just it, this was my early season fitness level after a long bout of rainy weeks. Bound to happen. Didn’t make struggling at 7,000 ft of elevation any easier on the ego, mind you. I met Chari back at the top and had some food before we gathered our things together. I signed in the register (which had toilet paper and granola bars in case the next hiker needed either) below Chari’s entry, and we started down. Remembering Bob’s report of Matthew missing a turn in the lower parts of the trail, I was wary when we remained on the road rather than retrace our initial ascent. Luckily, we found a path that led us the way we wanted through the woods.
Triumphantly, we dined at the Chinese Buffet in town before living it up at the Best Western Saturday night. When we checked in I flipped through the postcards at the desk. Trains were clearly important around here, I saw, and then I saw what must be the Tehachapi Loop. A train completely around a hill and then passed under itself in a giant loop. Wow, the engineer in me said. That couldn’t have been easy to layout. The next morning we had breakfast in the Red Caboose Lounge, or something like that. They had a model train layout (HO scale, the boy in me still remembers) of the loop in a case. As we ate, several tables discussed the current state of affairs in railroading, from what companies ran what lines and what they hauled, as well as management trends of the Pacific railroads in the last 3 decades. I had never heard railroading discussed before, but it was rather educational. I didn’t really think it out before because Tehachapi is so far to the east of LA and the Central Valley, but this was the pass that first allowed railroad traffic between San Francisco and Los Angeles. My education continued when a train went by outside the restaurant window and the nearby tables continued to discuss what they were hauling.
We descended toward Bakersfield, and this time I had to peel off at the Tehachapi Loop sign. Chari is used to my ideas of fancy when I drive, so she didn’t protest too much, just noted what my fuel situation was (a little low) as I turned off the main highway. I caught the tunnel through the trees first: the tunnel was facing toward me, but I could see a train track running across the top of it, too. The road continued to a good vantage point where two markers on the side of the road lauded the engineers (a national civil engineering landmark!) that had laid out the loop in the 1860s. One of the Seven Wonders of the railroading world, it said. [My clumsy Google search has failed to find out what the others are, but I have a librarian for a brother, so maybe he’ll search it out. Meanwhile, I found out there is a similar railroad loop up in Plumas County, CA. Cool stuff. /geekout] As I got ready to take a picture, I could hear a train coming down the tracks. Excellent! As the engine rolled into the perfect spot, it peeled out on the horn. Wa-hoo! Full geekout! Once again, Chari was only mildly impressed. There’s only room enough for one idiot in this relationship, I guess.
We turned the corner for Breckenridge and began the interminable winding that the road required of us. It just took forever to get up there, and then the snow stopped us at 5,800 ft. I figured it would have been a 13 mile round trip from where the car was parked, but I didn’t know how much of that would have been on sloppy or icy snow. Had I been alone, maybe I would have tried it rather than admit defeat. In truth, Chari and I hadn’t left much time for an extended hike. We (okay, I) were hoping to drive to the top of the ridge, making for a 2 or 3 mile hike. Drat, I wasn’t about to push my Civic through that next bank, and we didn’t have the time to make a hike like that through snow. Reluctantly, I turned the Civic around, and we rolled back through the turns and the cows (fences, who needs them).
We were lashed with rain on the return trip, and we learned that the Bay had indeed gotten lashed with rain once again. I’m glad we got out; I feel like the season is finally beginning.
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