Running Across America Week 1
Venice Beach — Nipton CA
Day 1 | Venice to Duarte:
The big day was finally here, and boy did it not feel real. The alarm went off at 6am and I jumped into action, tackling all my pre-run chores. There’d been a quiet buzzing of energy from the anticipation last night, which made falling asleep harder, but overall I slept pretty well. We stayed the night at a motel off the main road in Santa Monica, and had walked along the beach the night before. There was a sense of finality as I counted down the hours until the start. It felt like one last moment of tranquility before getting thrown into the whirlwind that would be the next 3 months.
After getting up, I went about changing into my running clothes, taping my feet, making a Huel smoothie, helping to pack up the room, and taking five, yup five, 💩’s. I was determined to get all that done in less than 2 hours which is surprisingly harder to do than it sounds. I was hoping to start at 8:30, with a 30 min drive banked in. That estimate was based on how long it took in the mornings on my test run from NYC to Boston. Christine, my girlfriend and crew for the trip, who takes nowhere near as long to get ready, brought Moose down to the beach where he frolicked in the sand.
We got on the road at around 8:15, which wasn’t too bad, and went to pick up my friend Gabby who wanted to run the first 15 or so miles with me. The forecast had originally showed pouring rain, but thankfully it was just cloudy in the morning, and cleared up at the start.
Venice Beach: After some start line photos and social media announcements, Gabby and I went down to the water where I dipped a toe and tried to capture some water to sprinkle into the Atlantic. Both tasks turned out much harder in reality! I scooped basically nothing into the bottle and had wet feet as a reward.
With a very anti-climactic alright I guess this is it, we turned away from the ocean. Without any fanfare or a crowd, it felt like just going on a regular run. The scope of the entire run just seemed so vast, that my brain almost didn’t believe that I‘d’ keep running every day until I reached the opposite coast some 3100 miles away. This inability to fathom what was to come, made for a very soft beginning to the very difficult journey ahead.
The first 11 miles or so were along Venice Blvd heading towards downtown. Gabby and I passed a lot of street art, murals, suburbs, and of course a lot of streets with LA’s iconic palm trees. The first crew stop happened around 11.5 miles in, where I knocked back some oreos + chips, and got a water refill. Gabby ran with me for another couple miles until the edge of downtown where she caught a train going back to the beach. We were ticking off some pretty fast miles, but I didn’t really mind. Having company and someone to chat with made it feel pretty effortless.
Downtown LA involved a lot of waiting for traffic, and felt a lot emptier than NYC. Past Chinatown, I crossed above an interstate for the first time, and then also the LA river… with flowing water?! There’d been some huge snowstorms in SoCal a week or two before, and it was starting to melt. On the mountain tops though, there was still lots of accumulation.
Once I got out of the downtown area, it was back to more residential neighborhoods. I followed Huntington Dr. northeast for the rest of the day which led me past different towns, big high school campuses, and more palm tree lined streets. The road would sometimes curve sharply around hills with high walls, and the sidewalk would be covered in a few inches of rocks and mud. The dirt right next to the road must’ve eroded from the recent rain, and I remember having comically heavy shoes from all the stuck mud.
My second crew stop was around 20 miles where I discovered just how good Lay’s Funyuns chips were, and met this little guy in someone’s yard.
Miles 20–30 for the day were pretty uneventful, except for when I passed south of Pasadena. I feel like that’s a town I’ve heard of a bunch before in books or shows, but never really bothered to find out where it was. When I saw the town sign, I was like oh cool, what a coincidence! The palm trees here were extra tall, and I was a big fan of the spanish colonial style houses. The San Gabriel mountains loomed ahead or to my left for the entire stretch, and I continued to be in awe of just how unreal they looked in juxtaposition to all the palm trees. There wasn’t much else during this stretch, although I remember feeling really good around the marathon mark running downhill while listening to Goliath by Smith & Thell.
I passed through Arcadia and Monrovia a bit after mile 30, and half expected to see a Trader Joe’s superstore or something. Most of their products list Monrovia as their origin point. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a store, but I did start bonking because I’d run out of snacks and water. At this point, the crew stops weren’t 10 miles or less yet. Christine ran out to meet me after she was done with work, but only had a bit of water on her. I made it another mile or so, where we somehow found some bubble tea, which instantly revived me! Not long after, the day came to an end in Duarte, CA.
Afterwards, I was determined to eat enough food, since this was the most challenging part of the test run. In the hotel room, I scooped down some peanut butter, ate half a can of corn, and drank an oat milk and ice cream smoothie before stretching and showering. Dinner was some Huel curry, plus a falafel wrap from a restaurant. It was a lot easier to take in calories that day, and not getting enough to eat became only an occasional problem from then on.
After dinner, I managed to put together a tiktok (@timgoesfar) of all the clips I captured that day. Looking back, I wonder how the heck we were so efficient with timing, because after a certain point, there just wasn’t any energy left to spend on being super regimented with our schedule. We got to the hotel that night at 6pm, and would go to bed around 10, so it was quite a bit of work that I got done in just 4 hours.
Day 1 stats: 36.3 miles, 1370 ft of elevation. https://www.strava.com/activities/8645076899
Day 2 | Duarte to San Bernadino:
When I checked my phone this morning, my video on Instagram was performing as expected, not very well, but when I opened Tiktok, I saw that it already had a few thousand views. When I posted the video for day 1, I was still at around 500 followers with only a few hundred views per video. Now, I couldn’t care less about becoming an influencer, but I did need to at least get some traction on social media in order to get word of my fundraising out. It was pretty fun throughout the day to open up Tiktok and see the follower and view counts shoot up each time. Bit of the ol’ dopamine rush whenever I fell out of a mental flow, ya know? By the end of the day, that video reached 35,000 views, and I’d gained about 800 followers for a total of 1,300 or so. Today, it’s my most viewed video with over 200,000 views.
We were back in the car around 9AM, and it was a short drive to where I ended yesterday. The original plan to try and run from 9 to 5 everyday lasted pretty much only until today though. I was feeling pretty good with just a little bit of soreness. I knew from the test run that my body would get stronger as the week went on, so I wasn’t very worried. After a quick story announcement about the start of the day on IG, I was off again!
Just kidding, I made it about 0.2 miles before I realized I didn’t pack the two larabars I ate between stops and had to backtrack to get them.
The start point was near a section of river surrounded by dry plants, which required the road to bridge over it. The bridge happened to not have any shoulders, so after just one day into the journey I was back with cars. I picked up the pace and mentally wished I had a stick to hold out to the side. Luckily only a few cars passed, and they moved over into the other lane. Once past the bridge, I was in Azusa, the next town over. For the next ten miles or so, it was running past warehouses, strip malls, and suburbs.
Around this point, the historic section of route 66 merged into another highway, and I hopped onto Baseline Rd. which ran parallel. The next 20 miles or so basically just went directly east and I passed through towns like La Verne, Claremont, and Rancho Cucamonga. Along this stretch, the San Gabriel mountains loomed high to my left, and a big valley dotted with different neighborhoods was on my right. Needless to say, I was in awe of the terrain I was running through! At times, I’d look forward and to the left to spot where I’d turn towards Cajon Junction to get past the mountain range. I assumed that it would be a little dip in the peaks, but the mountain chain was so long that I couldn’t get a good look.
At some point I turned onto a bike trail for a couple miles, and got a clear view at San Gorgino Mountain (tallest mountain in SoCal) without cars blocking the way. It was further away to the east, but loomed a lot taller than any other peak. I’d first seen it earlier in the day, and it incrementally got larger throughout the day as I inched closer towards it. Very dreamy looking, 10/10.
It was hot for most of the day, and a struggle in the afternoon to find shade. There was mostly only sidewalk on the left sides of the road, where there was no cover. Near Rancho Cucamonga I finally found some shade on the right side of the road with a wide dirt sidewalk covered by foliage. That’s also where I found some… bear tracks 😅
Close to mile 30, I began to zig zag northward and encountered the first real climbs of the trip! They weren’t too steep, but did stretch out for a long while. During the last crew stop for the day, I got to munch down on a vegan croissant that Christine picked up from a Whole Foods we passed halfway through the day. I also passed a traffic cam on Duncan Canyon Rd where my dad was watching and managed to spot me waving to it
Getting to Glen Helen Regional Park which was the end point for the day, was a bit sketchy in a couple spots. First was Sierra Ave where the sidewalk abruptly ended and I had to run on a shoulder on the right side of the road during rush hour. At an overpass for I-15 with no traffic light, I dodged some turning 18-wheelers to reach Glen Helen Parkway which ran parallel to the interstate.
The other sketchy section was just before reaching the park where the shoulders disappeared again as the road wound around some mountains. Luckily Christine had come out to run with me, and had scouted out an old fire trail that would take us directly to the park. We walked on the outside of a guardrail next to a dropoff to reach the trail.
At the campground, it was almost dark already, and we managed to get locked out of the front gate (fun). It was also the first time we’d have to camp out of the van, so it was quite chaotic. Shivering in the cold, I chowed down on a burrito, and used my stick roller while Christine tried to get the Jetboil working. Luckily by next week, we were both pros at lighting the cooker. After eating a second dinner, and feeding Moose, it was time to go shower… in the very dingy and cold concrete showers. It was coin operated (boo), but luckily the water was hot (yay), but we only got 5 minutes of water (boo).
After stumbling blindly back to the van (I’d taken out my contacts before showering), it was time to get the tiktok edited for the day. Seriously, I don’t know how I managed to get so much done after the run during the first week. Soon it was time to go to bed, but I did not sleep well because our bed was super tilted. We assumed it was because the bed was broken, but we were just dumb and didn’t pull it all the way over and let it rest on the ledge it’s supposed to go on.
Day 2 stats: 37.8 miles, 2355 ft of elevation. https://www.strava.com/activities/8650639851
Day 3 | San Bernadino to Victorville:
A wild ride of a day….
The morning routine went fine: I drank breakfast, went to “unload” in the the bathroom whose decor was prison inspired and got dressed. My Day 1 video on tiktok took off overnight, and now had more than 120,000 views. I was almost at 3,000 followers which was great, because I now had enough to add a fundraiser link to my profile. There’s no official number of followers to be able to do this, but I’d heard it was 1,000. However, that option didn’t appear until probably after I’d reached 2,000.
Just before I was ready to go run, I was scrolling through my watch’s routes list, but couldn’t find today’s. I’d assumed it was all there since I did a sync when I finished all the days during the planning phase. However, it just wasn’t there, and I had to whip out my laptop to try re-uploading. Nothing worked, and the fiasco ended up wasting half an hour. Later that night I found out it’s because there was a 100 route limit. While we were sitting outside of the park’s gate, a sheriff came up and asked if we were alright. He said our van was visible from over a mile away. After spotting the vehicle from far off many times during the run, I can confirm that the van’s colors were in fact visible from a couple miles out 😛
On a bridge less than a mile in, there was loud rumbling and engine noises coming from below. Prior to this, I’d never seen a freight train in person before, and it was a Union Pacific locomotive at the back of a train. Between the faded flag design and winged logo on the front, it looked metal AF. I was back on historic 66, and this section of the road ran next to multiple sets of tracks. Freight trains ran pretty frequently and I saw also a lot of orange trains which I found out were BNSF.
The road here was mostly quiet, and there was a lot of junk off the side of the shoulder. Pretty proud of this find:
A few miles in, I had my first encounter with a shitty driving practice that would continue to make me nervous every time it happened. A guy in a muscle car passed slower cars in his lane, and zoomed by just a few feet away. I’d never had that happen to me before, and it was scary because I couldn’t seem him coming. It taught me to watch what the road markings were, and really pay attention if it were a passing zone.
Luckily from here until Cajon Junction, there were sections of an old road that had fallen into disrepair. In most places there was a guardrail separating the two, so I felt pretty comfortable there.
Cajon Blvd, the road I was on, ended and would end up turning and merging onto I-15. (There also happens to be a coconut vendor with a cart there, practically in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately he didn’t want to get a selfie together) A short section of concrete sloped downhill and ended at a sand shoulder next to the train tracks. This was an area that I hadn’t been certain about before while making the route because it would depend on a section of trail that may or may not exist. From satellite view, I could see a tunnel that would cut under the interstate, and is part of the PCT. However, to get from the end of Cajon Blvd to that tunnel, there didn’t seem to be a clear path.
I ended up wasting about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get across a small river without getting wet. When I couldn’t find a good path, I climbed up to the train bridge that went over the river and booked it across as fast as I could. There’d been trains running pretty frequently all morning, and I didn’t know if they would come this way. Once past the bridge, I ran down a gravel bank and and was in front of the underpass tunnel. Only problem was, it too was flooded from all the snowmelt. So much for dry shoes.
Christine met me at the other end of the tunnel where we hiked up to a parking lot next to a Mcdonalds (I hear it’s a crowd favorite among hikers). I swapped out shoes and socks here, and continued towards the Rim of the World Byway. The intersection where I got on the highway was super sketchy. The road I was on basically merged via only a stop sign while four lanes of traffic whizzed by on the highway. This was the first road I’d been on that had a small shoulder and no large sand or dirt area off to the side. I remember not feeling safe especially at a large blind turn, and hastily took only one photo looking backwards.
Remember how I didn’t have the route for the day? Yeah, I ended up taking the trail that was before the one I was supposed to take wound up in a vacant construction site. I figured that I’d be able to get back on the correct trail just by heading in the general direction. It was working great until I got to the edge of a small ravine on the opposite side of where I needed to go. The only way across was on a gas pipeline. I wouldn’t call myself superstitious, but I had the sudden image of a cartoon explosion if I set foot on the pipeline. Following some cursing, I backtracked a quarter mile or so to try and get back onto the highway. I was getting frustrated again with the wasted time on top of the late start earlier in the day. After climbing a barbed wire fence (surprisingly hard and unstable), I was back on the road and managed to find the correct trail.
The trail was pretty wide and seemed to be used by off-road vehicles. I crossed over a couple sets of train tracks, and crossed under another one. After that, there was a decent climb to get to the top of the mountain that the interstate curves around. At the bottom, there was a road that would run parallel all the way to Victorville. The views along the way were incredible!
There wasn’t much anything at the top except for muddy puddles, some snow that hadn’t melted and a little research building. I made my way down, glad to be able to regain some time on the descent, and headed towards a gas station for another crew stop. After leaving the gas station, I was about to cross the road, but noticed that there wasn’t any shoulder on the other side and a pedestrians prohibited sign. Unsure what to do, I went back to the gas station. We decided to drive across the interstate and run on the road that ran parallel to the left side of I-15. The drive was probably 0.25 miles, but took at least 10 minutes. There seemed to be no end to time setbacks for the day! I remember staying pretty calm through this, and reminding myself that unexpected stuff is just par for the course for a Transcon.
The goal was to run on this parallel road until the next overpass and return to Mariposa Rd. Once back on route, I went into focus mode for twelve miles until Victorville. I don’t remember much else besides giant shopping plazas along the way, and one outdoor mini golf course with a windmill. The traffic on I-15 was absurdly backed up along this stretch, and it took Christine an hour to drive this bit.
As I was running into the downtown area, a guy at a bus stop stared as I approached, then smiled and said runnin’ ‘cross the country? I was pretty hyped that he could tell what I was doing, and replied with Yes indeed! It’s my third day. This interaction was awesome because for the rest of the journey, people either couldn’t tell I was running in general, or would never even consider a run of such length.
I stopped for the day where the road intersected with route 66 in Victorville, and wandered around to get some pictures of the Route 66 museum. A bunch more trains passed by, and we grabbed some vegan taco bowls from a Mexican place in the Amtrak station. The nearby Mojave Narrows Park was where we slept for the night.
I remember it being absolutely frigid at night, so we weren’t really in the mood to try to boil other food. The taco bowl alone didn’t have enough calories, and I ended up choking back a bunch of peanut butter before washing it down with oatmilk. Fun stuff. At least the shower was free though!
Day 3 stats: 32 miles, 2753ft elevation https://www.strava.com/activities/8655486289/overview
Day 4 | Victorville to Barstow
Route 66 Galore
With temperatures only in the high 30’s, it took us a while to work up the motivation to get out of the van in the morning. After a bit of a drive, we were back at the Amtrak station and ready to hit route 66 all the way to Barstow. Despite being behind schedule the day before, I was only around a mile from where I was supposed to be.
It was a perfectly clear day and the desert landscape was beautiful. There wasn’t a whole lot of civilization out here, but there did seem to be industrial infrastructure. Along with two large cement plants, empty freight trains sat to the right of the road between Victorville and the town of Oro Grande. BNSF trains would run every ten minutes or so on the tracks closest to the road.
Oro Grande was a tiny town about ten blocks wide that was divided lengthwise by train tracks. From the welcome sign, it states the population is 1,172, and it was established in 1861. The “town center” was just a few small shops to the left of the road that paid homage to the history of the highway. There was one restaurant in town called the Cross Eyed Cow, whose mascot looks pretty funny strapped to a rocket.
It was a pretty nifty town overall, and definitely fits the vibe of a route 66 roadside attraction. There was also an antique store/warehouse, and a storage facility that bought a big red caboose to use as a billboard. Just as quickly as I entered the town, I was already few miles down the road, and had left it in the dust (literally, the wind was picking up dust off in the distance and I could see sand clouds moving).
The next few miles were pretty much the wild west! Miles long trains loaded with containers would zip by on both sides of the road, houses were sparse, and there was plenty of junk strewn about off to the side. Abandoned vehicles seemed to be a thing out here along with old trailer homes. I found a knockoff designer wallet and got excited for a moment in case it had money, but it was mostly empty.
There were some “normal” houses dotted around too that all had chain link fences. In their yards lay piles of salvaged mechanical gear. It would’ve been cool to talk to some people about what life was like in the desert, but other than barking dogs that would run up to the fence, there was no sign of other life forms. These dogs actually gave me pretty good opportunities to test the rock throwing method of keeping dogs away. I tried both just bending down in a scooping motion, and tossing some underhand in their direction. Both worked well enough, and it gave me confidence for future dog encounters. In the yard of one house, there were two dogs hanging around with… a pet pig!! Pigs are super cute, and it was awesome to see one just chilling in the middle of nowhere. Unfortunately I might’ve scared him off, as the little guy went to go hide behind a tumbleweed bush
Further down the road was probably my favorite sight in all of the Mojave: Elmer Long’s Bottle Ranch. I had no idea it existed, but ended up spending a good 20 minutes wandering through everything. The inside area was way bigger than it seemed from the road, and had tons of fun objects to find! Definitely not just a gimmicky roadside display. Moose had a blast sniffing everything.
I didn’t grab too any photos, but got plenty of video. Basically, the attraction is made up of metal rods that act as a forest, and all sorts of bottles are hung off of the rods. In addition to the “trees”, there was a hodgepodge of scattered junk like literal missiles/bombs, old sinks, road signs, a typewriter, a boat, mechanical junk, old cars, toilets, and literally anything you can think of. Everything metal there was rusted, and a fine layer of sand covered everything.
After the ranch there was a long stretch of nothing all the way to Lenwood, which is a town just before Barstow. The road curved away from the railroad, and I didn’t see anymore houses either. There was nothing but tarmac, sand dunes dotted with brush next to the road, and mountains off in the distance. This was one of the first times I’d noticed just how quiet things were in the desert. The level of silence felt like a blanket that muted all sounds. Similarly, whenever a car came close, the sound would travel super far.
I remember seeing another person on the road here, and got really excited at the thought of running into a fellow crosser this early on. I tried signaling to the other person, who had a yellow shirt on, but he didn’t pay me any attention. Turns out he wasn’t a runner, but a migrant I think carrying supplies in a sack over his back. The scenery was beautiful, albeit a bit lonely, and I noticed that it was really hard to judge the distance of landmarks off in the horizon. I could run for a long time towards or past a mountain, and it would feel like I barely moved after a couple miles.
Towards golden hour, I made it to Lenwood where signs of civilization were popping up again. The town had a few repair shops, a Mexican restaurant, route 66 themed liquor store, and a couple RV parks.
From Lenwood, it was around 3–4 miles to Barstow. I was pretty tired at this point, and the day ended on a sour note. Christine came to run the last couple miles, but accidentally gave me the wrong distance to a spot beyond the end of the original route.
I was okay with the estimate, but became cranky when we still had to keep going beyond that. In the end I just stupidly charged through the extra distance and up the hills as a way to release a bit of the frustration. The extra distance was a little over a mile which would be chump change otherwise, but it can be crushing during a Transcon when earning that single mile can be a monumental mental effort at times.
Day 4 stats: 36.5 miles, 1106 ft elevation https://www.strava.com/activities/8661254956
Day 5 | Barstow to Midway:
The Desert’s creepy, and Yermo Rd is fun
The day started here at this wonderful mural paying homage to Barstow’s role as a major route 66 city. Since I’d be headed for Vegas over the next few days, my route would continue to roughly follow I-15. Route 66 would veer to the south and continue mostly parallel next to I-40. Since running on the interstate is illegal, I had to head north before downtown, and run on a trail until I got close to Yermo. As a result I didn’t really get to see Barstow’s retro signs up close, but at least we drove by them in the morning to come back to the start.
A short distance to the left of the mural was a bridge that ran over a massive train yard. It’s owned by BNSF and one of the largest train junctions in the country. I didn’t know much about freight trains still at this point, so I just thought it was cool looking and grabbed this photo of a departing train.
The bridge walkway curves down and to the right to the route 66 mother road museum (where that building with the arched openings is). I didn’t have time to go in, but did take a look around some of the old train cars they had laid out in the front. One car in particular caught my attention, as there’s an urban legend in NYC about FDR’s secret underground train.
I’d known about the myth for a while, but had heard that the train in NYC (which was under Grand Central) was moved from where it sat rusting away. In the back of my mind, it was something I’d never actually expected to see in person… until of course I stumble upon the exact model in the middle of the desert! It’s not the same one, obviously, but I recognized it almost immediately.
Continuing on from the museum, I ran for a few miles along old hwy 58 to reach a trail that would circumvent where the highway merges onto the interstate. The wind had been blowing pretty strong since I started, and was picking up quite a bit of sand. At times I needed to cover my nose, and my shins stung from floating sand picked up by passing cars. Sipping water also meant having gritty particles crunch between my teeth. Out on this road, there were a few clusters of houses, some rv parks, and a drive-in theater. The theater actually looked a bit creepy from far away, since it loomed a lot taller than any other structure around.
Christine caught up with me on the trail and I got a buff to use against the dust. It was pretty effective, but made it harder to breath. On the trail/dirt road, I felt jumpy which would be a theme for the rest of the Mojave desert. Towns that pop up alongside the interstate are tiny islands of civilization in the vast expanse of desert. The Mojave is just so large, that about a mile into the trail, I was feeling utterly alone and isolated. Subconsciously, the interstate was like a mental tether and not being able to see it made me nervous. Normally, it would be fun to go off into nature and explore a trail, but here I felt a lot more vulnerable.
I held a little canister of pepper spray (hot pink, thanks Christine), but I doubted it would do much against wildlife. I wasn’t worried about encountering people very much. The biggest fear I had was accidentally stepping on a snake, so a lot of effort was spent trying to stay in the middle of the trail and constantly scanning the ground. There was one moment where I saw a brownish thing on the trail about 100 feet away that I couldn’t make out. Rationally, I knew it probably wasn’t a bear, but that didn’t provide much relief. It ended up being just a pile of rusted junk. There was also a shooting range I passed, and the gunshots would echo pretty far.
I returned to paved road at a gas station north of Daggett, close to a tall sign of a man leaning on a shovel. It was a marker for Calico Ghost Town which was three miles up the road. Luckily the area’s not haunted, just abandoned when silver mining in the area dried up. Soon, I turned onto Yermo road, which ran parallel to the right of I-15, and where I’d stay until the end of the day. There was no shortage of whacky things to see on this road!
I thought this sign was hilarious. I don’t know if there’ve been abductions in the Mojave, but I suppose it’s close enough to area 51. ‘Alien Fresh’ carries very American connotations
This was just a bit strange. These tanks were pretty small, and maybe large SUV-sized? There were just a lot of them stretching over a couple miles. Apparently, Union Pacific works with the military.
Not sure where to even start with this one. Next to the road I was on, there was a sign with Chinese characters pointing to a park. I could just barely make out some sculptures off in the distance, since they’re much closer to I-15. One scupture in particular seemed spherical, and had reddish spikes coming out of it. It was too far for me to see, but I assumed it was a covid particle. I have so many questions about this place…. the desert’s just strange maaaaan.
This very colorful ice cream cup thing was adjacent to the sculpture park, and I thought it was also part of it. Turns out it’s just a gas station called Eddieworld, and they have a candy shop inside?
While passing through Yermo’s very small town center, a guy walking out of the variety store waved at me. He said his name was Mike, and that he’d seen me a couple hours earlier on old hwy 58. I told him I was running to New York, which he seemed hyped about. After politely declining extra water, I was back to running further down the road.
The original Del Taco restaurant is also on this road, and it was established in 1961. I’m not sure if I saw the sign on the roof when I took the picture, but pretty neat to find out it’s a historical landmark! Peggy Sue’s diner was another restaurant on this road a few miles back, but I couldn’t get a very good picture since too many cars crowded the front of the diner.
Towards the edge of Yermo, a dog ran out of its yard and was barking pretty strongly at me. I didn’t have that much experience with dogs yet at this point, so I can’t recall if it was actually being aggressive or just barking. Anyways, it kept approaching me while I backed up and feigned picking up a rock. When that didn’t work, I yelled “NO” and “GO AWAY” which didn’t do much either. I finally made some progress by tossing a rock. I kept walking backwards down the road while eyeing the dog, and it finally laid down in a resting position. There’s a good chance he/she was just bored.
A little while later, I saw two people running on the other side of the train tracks that were to the right of the road. They made their way across and down to a jeep that was parked there. When I drew level, they asked if I was also scouting for The Speed Project. I told them that I was headed for NYC instead, and wished them luck for when that race would start in a couple weeks.
Once past Yermo, the road basically continues towards nothing. The last few miles had ‘Road Closed’ signs after some bridges became structurally damaged. I saw some derelict billboards next to the train tracks, and a train that was just sitting there for a while. I was definitely tempted to climb onto one of the cars, but the locomotive seemed to be running, so i decided not to. Eventually, it started moving and I pumped my arm which got the conductor to honk the horn as he passed!
Since the road beyond Yermo was a dead end, I didn’t see any more cars for the rest of the day which was nice. And unlike earlier in the morning on the trail, I felt pretty comfortable and free on the road by myself. At one point, I could see metal skeletons and broken structures covered in Graffiti across the interstate.
When I first saw it, I thought it was a ghost town, and google maps didn’t have a designation for it either (It’s now been added as ‘Lake Dolores Waterpark’). Google pins in the area listed Newberry Springs, which is a ghost town, and I thought that was it. However, Newberry Springs is actually to the south on route 66, and this was a waterpark that originally opened in 1962.
After this, nothing really stood out. The last few miles came relatively easy, and the weakened bridges didn’t provide any difficulties. I met Christine where the road ended and was accessible from the interstate. She was actually in a meeting where I got there, so I decided to do some scouting for the next day. Initially, I‘d turn southeast and follow a dirt road to a wide trail deeper into the desert. That would run mostly parallel to I-15 and then slowly rejoin it down the road. I could see however, there was a fence about twenty feet from the edge of the interstate that I could follow on the outside. That would save me some distance from not having to go the wrong way for a bit.
We drove back on I-15 afterwards, and stayed the night at a hotel back in Daggett. As we were driving, a train next to where I’d been all day was chugging along and actually gaining on us. I had no idea freight trains could travel at 60–70 mph, pretty wild stuff!
Day 5 stats: 33.5 mi, 1001 ft elevation https://www.strava.com/activities/8667542222
Day 6 | Midway to Baker:
I get lost and have to bushwhack.
I started the day next to the interstate on the outside of a barbed wire fence. The fence serves as a barrier against wildlife from wandering onto the road (cattle), and in some places acts as a boundary between federal and private land.
Directly outside the fence, there seemed to be a faint trail, so I followed that for a few miles. There were a few times when the path would abruptly come to the edge of a dry river bed like the one above. When this happened, I picked my way around until there was a spot that made it easier to climb down.
It was during this stretch that I also began to realize the desert was not what I thought it would be. Being the city-dweller that I am, I failed to realize the landscape was not just a blank canvas of sand. It seems that way on Google Maps until you zoom in far enough and notice the tiny little dark spots everywhere. Those are bushes/shrubs that grow basically everywhere and making running in a straight line really difficult. Additionally, the ground was actually pretty hard packed with a layer of small rocks on the surface.
A few miles in, I came across the paved county road that connected to the trail I was supposed to take. I followed the road until it came to an overpass over the interstate that ended at an abandoned building with ‘Market’ written on it.
I was supposed to meet Christine here, but it ended up being the first (and only) time we had a mishap for a crew stop. When I arrived, she was still parked further back and couldn’t get here for 5–10 minutes. Typically, I could just keep going and we’d find a different spot, but since the interstate was the only road around, there wouldn’t be another stop for 13 miles. I waited around impatiently trying my hardest to not look like I was lost or up to anything suspicious. As I’m writing this, that hardly seems like a bad wait, but in the moment, it felt a lot more exaggerated. Momentum is one of the most important forces for getting through the day, and this break pulled me out of the zone and into my head instead.
Once back on the move, I was still a bit annoyed, so I took off a faster to try and regain some time. About two to three miles later, I started slowing down naturally, and may have gotten slightly lost.
On most maps, there’s a faint trail called Arrowhead Trail slightly north of the Interstate. Since the Interstate is illegal to run on, this trail seemed like a great way of navigating through open desert. Unfortunately I made a couple mistakes: 1. I didn’t review the route the night before and actually forgot the trail existed. 2. Having expected the desert to also be flat, I had no idea the trail would go up and over some small hills. These mistakes made for a wonderful two to three hour slog.
Here’s a satellite view of the area. It seems like Arrowhead Trail is pretty obvious and hard to miss.
That is, until you actually get on the ground and see that the landscape looks like this 😅:
I was south of the trail in the left picture and could not make out any semblance of a path from my height. I was look for a clear-ish path in the sand, but basically any area that didn’t have bushes or small grassy plants looked like that. I was basically seeing a bunch of “trails” through the shrubs that didn’t really exist and had no idea what the correct one was. It didn’t help that the actual trail probably had some plants growing on it too, so I might’ve been looking for the wrong thing completely. In my mind, I was picturing something like what I was running on during the previous day outside of Barstow.
And since I forgot there was a trail here, I thought I just drew a random route through the area, which made me doubt my watch. Instead, I decided to run away from the trail and go closer to the fence on this side of the interstate. That at least seemed like something tangible to follow.
At one point, the fence was right up against the side of a hill with no clearance. The trail I was supposed to take went up the hill, and I think I actually saw it, but didn’t want to take it in case it was a dead end. Instead,I crawled under the fence and ran close to the highway on a bank that was a few feet above the cars. I grabbed this photo while I was still on the bank, right before I went back under the fence.
I continued to follow the fence until the final three miles or so where the interstate (and fence) would loop around a valley that I could go straight through. At this point, Arrowhead Trail had diverged further off to the side, and it didn’t seem worth it to try and venture that far to go find the trail. The only option was to zig zag through the countless bushes that grew in the way and try my best to maintain a straight line. There was a mountain that I was aiming for, but with constantly having to change direction, I found myself a drifting off to the side a few times.
The valley was pretty challenging, because on top of the absurd maze of bushes, I was still super paranoid about snakes and felt tense throughout. When I’m running normally, I can keep my gaze at eye level, but here I was just fixated on the ground the entire time. Every time I looked up, neither the mountain in front or off to the sides seemed to be getting any closer. Landscape features in the west are just so large, that it’s really easy to underestimate how far off they are.
After a crew stop and re-finding the original trail atop a a hill, I gave the valley a proper one finger salute before setting off downhill on this much wider section of the trail. The six or so miles here were mostly uneventful, although a little creepy with the lighting and many downed power lines directly next to the trail. No snakes or bushwhacking at least, gotta take what you can get!
The trail here would end at an overpass that leads all the way to the mysterious town of Zzyzx. On the southbound side of the interstate, the sign for Zzyzx Rd is a tourist attraction purely because enough people wonder about what the heck it is, or why it’s named that. It’s definitely not something you come across everyday! The landscape just before the end of the trail was really interesting. It almost looked like Mars or the moon from the combination of the lighting, placement of rocks, and small mountains. Plus, there was also a random abandoned couch.
After crossing onto Zzyzx Rd following my last aid stop, I proceeded to have my mind blown by what I saw in the distance. Off to the southeast, a sunlit valley between jagged mountains with blue shadows contained a massive salt flat. The salt was startlingly white, and I initially thought it was snow (massive snowstorms in CA recently) or some kind of chemical.
Although my route had me following a trail that would follow the interstate northeast away from the salt flat, I decided to continue down the road towards Zzyzx (aka Soda Springs). This was just too cool of a sight for me to miss! There was a national park-esque sign stating that that the area was Mojave National Preserve, and that it was a research center for CSU. Further research said that the entire desert is basically the “Preserve”, so I’m just calling this spot the Zzyzx Sparkling Salt Land of Fun!
A little ways down the road, I realized that the salt was too far away for me to detour to and still make it to Baker for the night. I was pretty satisfied with the photos I got, and decided to cut through the open desert again towards the city. I was three to four miles away still, but the giant thermometer acted as a guide.
The ground here was different from earlier in that it was much rockier and along with the bushes, there were hard ridges everywhere. The rocks were pretty sharp and poked the bottom of my shoes for the next mile or so. Soon, the ground changed again to cracked dry mud, and I noticed some small patches of white. Maybe I’ll get to experience running on a salt flat after all! I thought. Soon, the ground transitioned to being completely covered with a thing layer of white! It looked like how the ground does after only an inch or so of snow. Not as cool as the main body of salt which was some ways off still, but a very unique experience regardless!
Christine joined me in the last couple miles as we crunched across the squishy landscape. The sun came out for golden hour as we took in the beautiful views and watched our shadows dance across the ground. We ended up finishing about half an hour later than usual, but that was ok! I was learning to really savor special moments like these, and only hustling through the miles when it’s necessary.
On the edge of Baker, everything was cast in a soft reddish pink light as the sun began its final descent into the horizon. The glow painted mountains to the north of Baker a deep red, while a full moon above the mountains shone bright and appeared larger than usual.
We stayed the night at an RV park in Baker, and it was the first time we were going to ‘dry camp’. We had electricity still, just no shower. It was the first time I’d ever cleaned off with just wet wipes, and it honestly wasn’t bad!
Over dinner, Christine and I shared a smile at officially made it further than Boston. Upon waking up the next day, it would be uncharted territory for number of consecutive days run!
Day 6 stats: 35 miles, 1214 ft elevation https://www.strava.com/activities/8672847885
Day 7 | Baker to ??:
Earning my sea(sand) legs
I stood at the start here today and surveyed the trail as it shot straight up the side of the mountain in the distance. There was something so cool about seeing the path disappear into the horizon, and then reappear miles away as it climbed up the base of the mountains. Without the trail to show the extent of elevation, these massive expanses of sloped ground would seem deceptively less steep.
If you zoom in on the photo above, you can see the interstate climbing for a bit, and then angling off to the right to where the slight dip is. It was 13 miles to the point where the trail intersects the highway which seems a lot closer with the lens I used. In reality, it looked like this:
The trail started off super wide, but soon shrunk in width until it was just wide enough to accommodate a vehicle. This did nothing to help my paranoia of snakes. Cars that drive on the path form two sets of tracks that are hard-packed and easy to run on. The downside is this forces you to run closer to the edge of the trail where snakes are more likely to be. There was a middle section between the tire tracks, but usually it was just too soft.
A stick bounced up and hit the inside of ankle at one point, and of course I immediately assumed the worst. Despite only having a little red mark instead of bite holes, I kept rolling down my sock and checking it every mile or so. Obviously, my mind was just being irrational as nothing punctured my skin, and I highly doubt a snake with a single fang exists. Besides, if there was venom, I was just speeding its spread by continuing to run (oops).
The view was gorgeous though at least! The mountains behind me looked beautiful with their blueish shadows, and the salt flat shone bright with reflected light.
The half marathon climb by itself was a bit over 2,000 of climbing with basically no descent at all. It was slower going than I was used to over the past week, which messed with my perception of distance. On most days, there’s not much leeway for “falling behind schedule”, since that means either going faster (unsustainable) or spending longer outside (less relaxing/recovery). However, the fact that I’d purposely designated today as a shorter one, helped to put me at ease whenever frustration started to rise up.
The climb was rather boring, and without music (listening for rattlesnakes), I found myself having a hard time with concentrating. Luckily I came up with a reward system where I’d focus for a mile, and then pull out my phone to look up some random topic that popped into my head during that mile. Having a lot of time to think would certainly be an understatement 😛.
At the top of the first climb sat the abandoned ghost town of Halloran Springs. I’d known about this from looking at maps, and it was super cool to see! There was about 4 or 5 buildings in total along with an old boxcar, but only two were still mostly intact. The sign for an old gas station at this site is still here too. The buildings were more spread out than I pictured originally from looking at Google Maps photos. That was a funny theme throughout where attractions or landscapes in real life would always look so different from the figment I created in my head.
Here’s a look at the entire town, it’s actually much further from the interstate than I imagined it to be:
Past Halloran Springs, I crossed over the interstate and continued climbing on a wider trail. It was steeper in some parts along with more rolling hills, but I felt more comfortable being able to stay in the center of the path. The downside was, the sand was much softer, and for a few miles it felt like running on the beach. I remember seeing fresh footprints and thinking that this didn’t seem to be a trail people would just decide to hike. However, I’d heard about someone who was currently walking from LA to Vegas that set off just before me. It seemed like a plausible explanation, and it was pretty exciting to literally be following in his footsteps towards LV.
Interestingly, there were Joshua trees in this area! I’d been to Joshua Tree Nat’l Park before, and it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen at sunset. It was pretty cool to see them a good distance north of where the park is!
At the very end of the last climb, I pulled out my GoPro to capture my reaction at the view I thought was going to be over the hill. I scrambled up the final few loose rocks and see… another rolling hill right after 😂. I now have a hilarious video of me saying Oh For Fuck’s Sake in an exasperated tone as I reach the top. Luckily, that second hill was the actual peak, and it was mostly downhill from there!
It wasn’t actually much of a downhill, but at least no more climbing. For the last 6 miles of the trail, I was energized by the thought of crossing into Nevada before the end of the next day. I didn’t know how far into Nevada Vegas was, but I remember texting people and saying that the city was hiding “just” behind the mountain to the left in the second photo. Vegas would end up being two days away still, but the technicalities didn’t really matter. The first border crossing was still a huge milestone!
The last few miles of the day were pretty easy, and Christine and Moose ran with me until the end of the trail. Around us was another large grove(?) of Joshua trees, and to our left was a really tall snow covered peak in the distance.
The route for the day ended when I reached pavement. Feeling ecstatic from the return to solid ground, I decided to do a victory mile down the road. There was no one else around, so when Christine caught up to me in the van, we just goofed around and I would race the van when it coasted. The next day would involve a nearly 20 mile trail on my own that I was a bit nervous about, but at the end of today I was feeling good and ready to take on what was to come.
Afterwards, we drove ahead into Nevada where we’d stay two nights in Primm. On the drive there, a huge valley opened up ahead of us during the couple thousand foot descent. It was a breathtaking view, and I’m glad I got to see it. My route originally would’ve followed the interstate, but it was difficult to confirm that the trails I found would all connect to each other. Instead, I took a page out of the Speed Project handbook, and re-routed to Powerline Rd which was further north and would go up a mountain to over 5,000 ft.
After a dinner consisting of a smoothie, Carl’s Jr Beyond Burgers, and Jetboiled Huel, week 1 was a wrap!
Day 7 stats: 27.1 miles, 3317 ft elevation https://www.strava.com/activities/8678354482
