One of the guys staying at the Natures Inn agreed to give me a lift back to the trail at hwy 18. Greg said early was good, I suggested 6, he agreed, and of course he was late getting up. Finally got up there around 7 ish. Big thanks to Greg for the lift.

There was a single person tent setup next to the trail head. Spoke with a guy packing up and said it was a gal he dropped last night. He hiked the trail in ’14 and was Angeling for her. They were late getting there so he just camped it and was heading home.

Hit the trail and started climbing. It was a great morning. Alice says she wants more scenery photos, so here it goes.

Most of the day was a pleasant walk through pine trees and a good, soft trail of pine needs on a loam trail. Lot of shade

Girl in the tent apparently woke up, packed, then passed me on the trail. She didn’t say much, seemed to want to get some miles asap. Soon after she passed me, I caught up. She was posting a written message on the trail stating “Rattlesnake ahead, be careful”. Thought that was cute. Asked her if she was my snake bait for the day? That got a frown. She blew past me and didn’t see her till the evening.

Around 11 I found a cool lookout on a rocky outcrop. Time for some lunch of hot spuds and my newest innovation of spinkled bacon bits. Yum.

Take note of the alpine meadow in the view. Little did I know that I’d spend the next 4+ hours walking around that thing.

While enjoying my taters Wing It showed up! Hadn’t seen him since Warner Springs. We spent a little time catching up. Neither he nor I have seen any other Indians or Pakistanis on the trail. We agreed we need to fix that.  Had a good laugh about his hair/beard combination. I think he’s becoming wiser with every inch it grows. He should be a shaman in a couple months. I shot a promotional picture

The views kept coming. Here are a couple of Big Bear lake. You can see the two ski hills of bear mountain (left) and snow summit (right). In the background is San Gorgino which is 11.5k feet. According to a local I chatted with, it is the tallest peak in southern cal.

More walking on nice trail. This section is well maintained.   I think it might even be Alice-able.  Have to bring her up here sometime. 

It was about then that I realized I was walking around the meadow I glimpsed at the beginning and stared at during lunch. 

2:00, the damn thing is still there

3:00, finally I’m through it.

The remaining 1.5 hours was through a huge burned area. Only took a couple of pics. This used to be densely forested….now it is a gloomy barren spectacle.

I caught up with Wing again during the last segment and we chatted technology for a while. Nice diversion. We landed at Holcomb creek (mile 285.9) in a nice open meadow. Good primitive camping here.

Found snake bait girl with a dude named Toe Jam (Jonathon, since he’s not sure if this is real trail name). Turns out Jonathon is from Evansville, IN, fairly close to where I grew up and went to college. Snake bait’s trail name is Blue and she was a little more talkative. She’s a nurse from Michigan who is section hiking a 100 miles this year.

While we were sitting there, a load of people started turning up. Fire Ranger, Gordan (Australian on his second attempt), Hip, Happy Times (a permanently smiling hippy dude), Vipr and her sister Fun Dip from Seattle, and others. A large group of Germans turned up as well Felix who I hiked with a bit earlier, Fireball (carries a flask of cinnamin whiskey), a brother sister pair, and others. Most of these folks I’d seen and hiked with before. It was quite the reunion.  Should have got a group photo….

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Fireball had a raging fire going in their camp, so Jonathon and I left the Americans and headed over. It was a lot of fun. The Germans were cooking marsh mellows and passing around the whiskey. In another hour all the camps combined around the fire. Must have been 17+ people there.

Did a 17 miler today. The old man (me) needed some zz’s so I took off early. They were still going at it when I crashed at 9.

 I have my Linux laptop from my bounce box and spent a bunch of time updating this site.    It is nice to have a decent computer rather than my hokey phone / kindle combo.   One of the problems that comes with this is that I have to deal with the post office.

First day was laundry, food, drying, and posting.   I’m in a crappy spot for a hiker b/c businesses are all scattered around this area.   Probably should have stayed at the hostel.   Snagged some leftovers from a hiker box and bought various cravings.   Katie S. posted on facebook that I don’t have enough protein in my diet, so I added a Slim Jim 🙂

 

Today (as I’m writing this) is finding some fuel for my stove and bouncing my laptop ahead.  I feeling I need one more recovery day on the muscles.   Was chatting with Joe (brother-in-law / PCT hiker wannabe) and mentioned that my plan is to get sick of being here.   As of this morning I think I have succeeded.   

Found a dude to drive me around today and drop me on the trail tomorrow at 6am.    Another 100 miler to Wrightwood and water is going to be a little hard to find.   Back to packing 4+ liters again.      

 

It was freaking cold last night.   We were camped at 7.6k feet, but the temps still dropped to 20 or maybe lower.   My tent was setup on 2 inches of snow and my inflatable pad was not giving me the insulation love I expected.

I had read a few months ago about a guy who brought 2 pads into the sierras so he could insulate on cold days.   As an afterthought, I brought a second pad thinking I’d just use it for laying around on lunch and ditch it at some point.   Well, that second pad sure saved the night for me.   My bag was definitely at its limits that night.  

When I rolled out of the tent, one of the guys had started a fire.   It was a blessing.   All of us were huddled around it.   We’d warm up, run to break up our tents, run back to warm up again.   Kind of comical.  

I couldn’t find Phd and I was sick of carrying his stuff.  Bottom said to chuck it in the fire.  Phd is kind of a douche anyway so why not?   It made a nice burst of flame.   Some of the folks were frowning at me.    Probably LNT ‘ers…but hey… there was no trace left after the burn.  

Hooked up with Zack, Austin, and Dan for the 10 miles to Hwy 18 where we hoped to get a ride.   Zack and Austin hiked my speed.   Dan was much faster, but his phone and GPS batteries were dead, so he needed us.  

Along the way, Zack starts going on and on about a Sizzler in Big Bear.   He is building this thing up like heaven on earth.   Unlimited salad bar, gigantic steaks, multi-trip deserts.   Pretty soon that was all we could think about.  

We made hwy 18 at 12 and stood around for 20 minutes trying to thumb a ride.    Plenty of cars go by, but no love.   Zack decides to get on the other side of road and do some dancing.      That didn’t work either.   Probably the opposite on hindsight.

Finally some creepy dude stops and offers a ride.   Only 3 would fit and Dan offered to stay, but I took the bullet instead.   We agreed to meet at Sizzler.    Turns out I got the W on this one, as my ride shortly thereafter took me to the parking lot ahead of them.   

Sizzler was INCREDIBLE.   It is hard to describe the joy we found there.   Sitting in a corner charging our stuff and grazing for 2 hours.  

I was the first to bail because I needed to get to the post office.   It was supposed to be .4 miles away.  Walked there and it had moved to shopping center.   Walked to the shopping center, stood in a long line only to find that the one I needed was 3 miles away.   Or maybe the package went to Big Bear LAKE instead of Big Bear CITY in which case it is 2 miles in the opposite direction.   

What a bummer.    Well, turns out some super nice lady in line offered to give me a ride to BOTH !    She drove me around for an hour with her two teenage boys and a dog in the back who all totally hated me by the end of the trip.  

Went to the first office, stood in line for 10 minutes…no package.   Next one, took 15 minutes.   The old postal dude shuffles around back for who knows how long and finally returns with my unicorn wrapped laptop!  This lady doesnt stop there.   She actually drives me to an inn and makes sure I get a room.  Her boys were shooting lasers at me from the back seat.

Did a 10 miles, ate a Sizzler extravaganza, had a free chauffeur, and got a room with a hot tub for $40/night (PCT Special).   All is good.  Zero tomorrow.

Just some weak rain last night, guess the first part of the storm petered out.   Packed up the tent, had breakfast, and joked around with Dan, Bottom, and Blackfoot.   Phd untangled his tent from mine and others, said a few words then left. 

Bottom and I were getting ready to clear out when we noticed that Phd left his hat and pack towel.   That guy keeps dropping stuff.   Yesterday he lost a trekking pole.  Few days before it was something else.   Bottom was ranting that he was not going to carry another guy’s  #%@@#! stuff again.  Apparently this kind of thing keeps happening to him.   I said fine and packed Phd’s crap. 

Plan today was to do hard miles, get through the burned area, over the 8k passes, and down to a campsite at Deer Springs (256.1).   17 miles and a lot of vertical feet.   Storm was supposed to be coming in which had all of us a little nervous.  

I took off alone and started up.

Blackfoot passed me after a few miles, then I found him rolling a blunt on a pass.   Chatted for a while with him and a couple new faces Tim and Sharon from Orange county.   Didn’t see any of them again after that.  

Then the sky became angry.  The dark clouds started rolling in.  

Stopped and put on my rain jacket, gloves and a buff.   Hiked for a bit then the sleet started falling around mile 245.

This is where the layering story gets interesting.   I kept a vigorous pace through the storm, but the temp kept dropping and my feet were getting cold.   I pulled over and put on some long johns under my shorts and went back at it.   Soon my feet were warmed up, but my fingers were now freezing.   Hmm.   Pulled over again and put on my puff jacket under the rain jacket.   Hiking again, my hands started to get warm.   As long as I was moving I was in perfect balance.  Not to hot, not too cold.   

Around this time and Australian guy and I were lapping one another.   He didn’t say much, except that it was “hailing” and the snow sucks.   He had on shorts and no gloves.   Didn’t see him after he passed me for the third time.  Perhaps I mistook his body for a snow covered rock.

The sleet turned to snow and it fell for the rest of the day.   However, I was having one of the best days of the trip.   I wasn’t cold, everything was super quiet, and nobody was around.   I counted 3 maybe 4 passes each over 8.3k.   I only used 4 liters of water on the whole trip.  Compared to the desert, this was heaven.        

I had some interesting flashbacks to my childhood here.   Growing up in Indiana, I’d often head out to the woods to help my Dad cut wood, fix a fence, or whatever during the winter months.   Many times it was in conditions just like this….   A couple inches of wet snow on the ground, sticks and leaves poking through.   Funny I’ve never had a reason to be in this kind of environment since moving to California.   I’ve only wanted to see snow if I can ski it.    

Trail was easy to follow so the whole segment was groovy.  So quiet.

Coming down to the lower elevations around 4, the snow let up a bit.   Started running into some trail magic posters 

This one should have been awesome, but my hiker-trash brethren had cleaned out all the sodas, chips, and left me with some nasty snacks called “Minees” which totally suck.    There were 3 flats of the things still in the box…guess others agree. 

Last couple miles were a little trickier.   The snow stopped, but the accumulation was higher.   It was hard to judge where the rocks were.   I picked through it and got to mile 256 around 6 where everyone was setup.   Nobody was milling around, they were all snuggled in their bags.   Only folks who greeted me were the Swiss couple.   They seem well adapted to this stuff. 

Pulled 17.5 miles today.   Another good day.

 

 

Last night Bottom was talking about the no-camping boundary in the San Bernadino’s that started around Mile 238.   So most of us are making a goal of hiking to the boundary today, camping, then hitting the high country.  

I headed out early with Bottom who promptly left me behind.   The snowy bit in this picture below is were we are heading over the next 2 days.

Since I was out early, several fast hikers passed me on the way up.   Here is Guo (?) a hiker from Taiwan passing me. 

Today I was passed by a German, a dude from Taiwan, Tree from China, Sophia from France, a Swiss couple, and a couple Americans.   There were some other smelly fellows from who-knows-where as well.  I’m like 3rd string on the Olympics team out here 🙂

The good news is that the trail crosses Mission Creek a dozen times and the water is flowing good.   On hindsight, I probably should have reduced my water carry. 

Each time the trail crossed the Creek, the terrain got green and marshy.   In one of those marshy spots the trail seem to split.   I couldn’t figure out which one to take and all the foliage prevented a GPS fix.   So I guessed…wrong.   Walked 10 minutes around in the marsh until the trail turned to nothing.   Standing in 3 inches of soggy whatever I managed to finally get a fix on the trail which was 30 feet away up 10 foot shear sandy wall.  Got a few scratches climbing that one.  

Early afternoon I caught up with most of the folks ahead of me finishing lunch at another stream crossing.   They took off and I chilled for a while.   Tree and Sophia showed up as I was packing so it was my turn to leave someone behind. 

Hit the San Bernadino boundary shortly after.  

Thought this picture was important.   Some kind of super Yucca that folks were talking about in camp that night.

Made camp at mile 238.6.  The whole crew was here.   The camp site was for 2 maybe 3 tents, but all 8 of us crowded in.   Then the fun began. 

First was Guo cowboy camping when the forecast said rain was coming.   He was laying in his sleeping bag and Bottom starts giving him shit about getting wet soon.   Turns out that Sunshine has some kind of mega tarp tent with some extra room, so he moved under the big-top.  Funny, a guy who speaks little English moves in with a gal who speaks little to anyone.  

Next was a dude that Bottom, Dan and I have talked to but never got his name.   He is a little snooty.  Said he was going to study for his Phd in Cambridge after the hike…we just call him Phd.   Anyway, Phd thought it too windy and crowded, so he sets up next to the creek in an obvious flood area…and a storm is coming in.   He must have heard us laughing about it, because an hour later his tarp shows up practically on top of me. 

Today was a 21 miler.   I’m rocking.