• Date: June 16, 2021

• 58.87 Miles

• 6,072 Feet of Gain

• Tehachapi, CA to Lake Isabella, CA

Today is predicted to be even hotter than yesterday.  The extreme heat warnings and record breaking highs stretch across the entire zone we are biking.  It makes last night's sleep in an A/C-filled room feel restorative and a form of recovery.  The alarm for 2:30 starts too early.  My body wants entirely to lay in the hotel bed.  But we choose to move, need to move.  The heat is too hard and too intense to excuse the night from moving our legs.  This extreme heat warning keeps getting extended in time and expanded in region so that it seems to sit wide and full of fuming-brooding over the entirety of southern California.  We also need to descend back down into the heart of Mojave Desert by going to 1300 feet today before climbing back up to 4300 ft.  Janna and I aimed to be through that low section before any part of the midday heat was right on us.  

By day's end, it would be nearly 116 degrees, though we started the day only expecting 105 degrees F. 

The ride out of Tehachapi at 3 am is completely dark and silent.  A settled temperate air degree is comfortable at this hour, belying the day's scorcher to come.  No cars are out.  It's peaceful, serene, and dense with night.  The road heads west out of town before turning north on a country byway.  In the dark, we pass through a countryside of ranches and their barking security dogs.  The dogs rush across vast ranchland yards before halting at perimeter fences and barking loudly at us.  Sometime later we arrive at a pullout with a placard.  Excitedly, I yell to Janna to pull over.  This is the viewpoint for the famous Tehachapi Loop.  Somewhere in the dark below us is a 3,800 foot stretch of Union Pacific Railroad that forms a spiral on top of itself to gain a steady 2% grade over Tehachapi Pass for trains.  Trains longer than 3,800 feet end up literally looping on top of themselves.  It's night, so I bemoan the lost opportunity to see what it looks like.  But suddenly, at that very moment, a train comes chugging through the dark at the track.  There are enough lights lining the train for us to get a good silhouette in the dark and realized we are literally watching a massive line do a loop on top of itself.  It was freaking spectacular.  

As soon as it's done winding helical, the train moves off and we push on.  Luckily, this morning's first 20 miles are nearly all downhill.  This affords us distance in favor of our time.  We continue on through several small communities clustered along the road.  Janna and I reach Cesar E. Chavez National Monument.  It's too early for the center to be open.  We both regret that opportunity not afforded to tour the grounds and learn more about the famous workers' rights leader.  We decide to come back to see this again someday.  We pull out of the entrance parking lot to continue along the Sierra Cascades which almost immediately joins Highway 58. 

This highway is intense.  As in, one of the most intense I've ever ridden in my life.  The Adventure Cycling Association maps mention that this highway can be particularly bad for cyclists.  It is not an understatement.  Before making a right to join its shoulder, we can see that even now at 4 something in the morning, it is crammed with semis and rushing traffic going 70+ mph.  The shoulder is terrible and littered with glass, metal shards, literally bricks (bricks everywhere for long stretches!), and crumbling pavement.  We turn on our lights.  I'm completely aware that it's that gray morning dawn-time when it's not fully night but not fully day and the crepuscular vision of drivers is terrible.  Luckily, our northbound approach means its mostly downhill for us.  We turn onto the highway and watch as what seemed to be a wide shoulder narrows next to guardrails on our rights and 4 lanes of traffic one-way on our lefts.  I'm pure adrenaline and tons of stress.  It becomes five harrowing miles of terrible riding where I keep thinking we are going to get hit.  Over and over again, I say out loud, "This is scary ass shit."  Janna keeps silent as we continue along the freeway.  

What feels like forever along the freeway ends, and we exit onto a frontage road as dawn and the rising sun crest the horizon.  We're immediately deposited into hills covered in golden grass of unmatched beauty.  The auburn and faded-yellow grasses smooth the dramatic edges of the mountain-scape.  And the sun is just egg-yolk orange smoldering through a smear of high-altitude clouds.  It all feels surreal and some ways completely unlike any landscape I had ever seen.  Both Janna and I pause to take it all in, drink some big swigs of water, and continue down smooth, unvehicled pavement into the heart of these foothills.  The clouds are indicative of the high humidity.  I feel sticky and now hot with the sun finally coming out.  I know I'm sweating strongly.  

But the gorgeous landscape swallows my eyes and distracts me from the temperature.  The lighting is just insane.  Somehow the clouds and eastward sun combine with the pyrite hills to produce a sepia-tone over everything.  I loved it.  And just like that in early-morn, we are coasting through the community of Caliente at our low point.  It's time to climb.  Our ACA maps indicate a remarkably steep climb ahead with copious switchbacks and grades on paper that make my eyebrows raise.  The uphill traces a contour along a canyon that provides a thicket of oaks and other trees.  Their deciduous green foliage contrast gorgeously with the grassy flanks we're climbing.  It's so steep that I eventually get off my bike and start to push.  The hairpin turns and road climbing right above itself continue for miles while I hike-a-bike.  It's then that notice a perceptible shift in the vegetation and rock formations.  I can sense the arrival of the southern Sierras.  

A bike tourer comes whipping around the corner coming downhill.  He throws on his brakes and stop and talk for us for a bit.  He's doing the Sierra Cascades route as well, but as a southbounder.  He started his trip at the Canadian border back on May 8.  This desert crossing is his last section.  He looks at us seriously and says, "There are some big climbs coming the way you're going and what I just finished."  I look at him and say, "There are equally big ones the way we just came with some dangerous heat brewing."  He nods solemnly and continues on.  Janna and walk together and note that we are coming to the end of this passage of the Sierra Cascades.  This passage through SoCal and the one ahead in the Sierras as the two most difficult passage of the entire Sierra Cascades.  We feel a sense of accomplishment knowing we are finishing this one - it bolters a sense that we're going from hard to easy and that we can do it.  Plus, I'm looking forward to climbing up into the Sierras and hopefully any future heat.  

We crest the climb under the boughs of gathering woodlands before a descent down to a wide valley cut flat against a backdrop of prominent granite peaks.  Farmer's fields dot the landscape and we coast along.  Clouds are gathering, humidity feels high, and the sun's rays are intense.  It makes a nauseating swirl of heat and sweat that has me putting back big gulps of water.  The northside of the flat valley climbs back up into mountains for an ascent once more.  But these mountains are burnt and littered with a recent wildfire.  The homes that escaped the burn are ranches surrounded by fences.  Suddenly, a horse at one comes screaming at us, charging at his fence.  It literally looks like he is going to jump the fence to get to us as a territorial gesture which actually catches me off guard with fear.  We pedal quick to get away and laugh afterwards.  We know Lake Isabella is near, just some twenty miles ahead.  Janna and I both put our heads down to push through these last miles and get some cold drinks in town.  

The scenery drifts by me in a blur.  I increasingly feel the effects of the heat.  I swear it feels hotter than predicted but tell myself its all in my perceptions.  Janna pulls farther and farther ahead feeling strong.  I get off and walk the bike feeling a bit nauseous and out of it.  This goes on for many miles among scrubby-peaks and exposed tarmac.  But then, by noon, I crest one last rise to find Janna excitedly staring down the other side of the pass to Lake Isabella.  And there, in its backdrop, is the official start of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains as well as the official completion of this passage.  We whoop and holler in delight before dropping down several thousand feet into the city along the southern shores of Isabella Lake.  

And it is hot.  Like so hot I start getting dizzy.  As we enter town at noon in the height of the sun, we beeline it immediately for a Mexican restaurant where we prop our bikes and head inside for food and icy drinks.  I can't believe how hot it feels.  I feel absolutely wrecked physically.  I down several glasses of ice water.  I'm feeling so off that I can't even really eat the lunch we order.  Janna gets worried about me.  We both look up our campsite and find that there is a closure!  Immediately, we set ourselves to task to find a place to stay in Lake Isabella.  It's too hot to continue going farther anywhere.  We find a cheap place to stay at the Lake Isabella Motel.  It's affordable and not too far from the main thoroughfare.  Plus, they have swamp coolers - better than nothing.  Unfortunately, they won't let us check in for three more hours.  The only thing to do is make our way now to the local Vons to get a resupply for the next two days.  

As Janna and I make our way over, I cannot believe how much hotter it feels.  A feeling of anxious nausea washes over me.  I can't put my finger on it, but I feel absolutely awful.  It turns out every business in town is closed for indoor access due to COVID and the Vons is regulating how many can go in and out.  There is no escaping the heat for the next three hours.  There is also no shade overhang at the Vons so we find a place to prop our bikes in an angular throw of building shade.  Janna goes in first.  Outside, I feel like I'm cooking in the sliver of shade on the blacktop.  We would later find out it was 116 degrees F, a new record-breaking high for the area.  When Janna comes to switch with me, I'm feeling real low.  I stagger into the store and buy 2 Gatorades and 2 Pedialytes.  I need electrolytes and liquids now.  I rejoin her outside and immediately guzzle two of them.  A light comes back on inside me.  We pass the next 3 hours sitting out in those conditions until we ride slowly in the blazing sun over to the motel.   

We check-in to the motel and upon entry to the room, I head to the bathroom where I urinate for the first time in hours.  It comes out as an opaque ice tea color.  I panic, immediately thinking I've somehow developed rhabdo again.  It's one of the darkest urines in my life.  Janna assures me it's not rhabdo and that I need to keep drinking liquids - which I definitely oblige.  I drink tons of fluids to recuperate.  It ends up doing the thing as I'm suffering from extreme dehydration and on the verge of heat exhaustion.  I head into the shower, put it on the coldest temperature, and just sit underneath the water stream while we crank the swamp cooler and close every window shade to the room.   In about an hour, I'm starting to feel like a human again.  It's only early afternoon now, but we're already pouring over our ACA maps trying to figure out our plans for tomorrow.  A quick check of temperature reveals it's supposed to be 114 degrees here and nearly 97 even up at Sequoia National Monument where we're supposed to camp tomorrow at elevation.  It will be over 100 degrees by 9 am.  That's a mind-blowing statistic.  And that's on top of an expected 80 miles of cycling and 8,000 feet of gain.

Caught off-guard by this updated information, I feel a bit panicked, especially given my near heat exhaustion from today.  I start to wonder out loud whether we have in it us (really me) to keep going.  Janna reminds me not to quit on a bad day and the beauty of the national parks to come.  She assures me that my dehydration will improve and that high elevation Sierras are before us.  We quickly reformulate a plan.  We will bike up and over the southern Sierras tomorrow instead of camping on top to knock out even more miles to get us closer to Three Rivers.  Three Rivers sits low and hot two days out.  We have a hotel there and a zero day planned for our wedding anniversary.  Get there, get in the A/C and the heat wave should thus have passed.  I'm back in the game mentally.  With that, we drink tons of fluids and food before heading to bed at 6 pm for a 3 am leaving again.