The sign says “Water and good hiking shoes recommended.” I looked everywhere. No where is it approved for motorcycle boots, long underwear (under my motorcycle pants of course), and not so much as a drop of water. But that is how I hiked the 600 foot Kelso dunes. The hike up is a trudge. Two steps forward, one step back, the thighs burning, and the heart working hard. I opt for the circuitous trail that traverses the face to the saddle point, and then up along the ridge line. Chris opts for a frontal assault the shortest, steepest route. At the top, I take a picture of Chris still fifty feet off the summit making sure he knows I am there in a deliberate attempt to break his spirit.

The view from the top is fantastic looking out over the Mojave desert. Cameras just don’t capture big sky, the feeling of being up on top, surveying the land, that feel of distance and space. Of course, it doesn’t stop me from trying. Curiously, I pick up a stray cell tower, that delivers a number of text messages, the nearest civilization fifty miles in any direction. I also take a survey of the area near the dirt road we came in on. I can see a group of trees that look like a perfect spot to make camp for the night. The ninety minute walk up is a thirty minute walk back. I run down the steep part of the hill that Chris came up, taking twenty foot strides running down, covering the distance that Chris just came up on hands and knees in a couple of seconds, the grains of sand avalanching with each foot fall, the grains rubbing together making a high pitched singing sound as the sand slides down the hill. Water awaits back at the trailhead and while my motorcycle boots might not be optimal hiking boots, they keep the sand out and I think are snake bite resistant. Luckily, I don’t have the opportunity to test that hypothesis.

We find our campsite that we picked up from our summit search, a primitive campground under some tamarisk trees, the surrounding land dotted with white poppies and creosote bushes. The high altitude makes for a much colder night than below sea level campground of Death Valley. Brooke has taken all the food north to San Francisco, so Chris and I dine on the Ramun noodles and each drink a bottle of wine, the only food we can fit in our saddlebags, admiring the intensity of the starlight in the clear night sky and taking on such topics as abuse of electronics and the value of DIY and how far we are from anything like civilization. Just as we are about to call it a night, three van loads of UCSC students camping on their spring break pull in, and in the dark, setup their camp, destroying our short-lived illusion of solitude. But they settle in quickly, I am not sure if they even know we are here.