Mulholland pipe - LA Aqueduct

When you learn about the Los Angeles Aqueduct for the first time, you imagine this water pipe going on for miles and miles. In reality, the stretch along the PCT where you actually walk on or next to the pipe is pretty short. If you don't want to stumble over the pipe in the dark of the night, you can also hike on the road right next to it.

A long, straight South-North section of the PCT trail runs along the half-burried, occasionally exposed massive iron pressure pipe segment of the LA Aqueduct. Designed by Mulholland over hundred years ago, this engineering marvel -- despite all its controversy in the Owens Valley which it leaves bone dry -- is the source of much of the water that allows the Los Angeles megalopolis to exist, hundreds of miles to the south.

To cross the low-lying area without a long detour, the LA Aqueduct here is encased in a pressure-proof pipe, that is mostly half buried for several miles. You can walk on the smooth wide pipe or on the parallel gravel service road. You will follow this aqueduct through the Mohave desert for another day.