Day 17 – 21 | Mile 209.6 – 266.1 | Mission Creek

Day 17 | Mile 209.6 – 218.6

After some discussion, it was decided that Lando would travel ahead to Big Bear to rest due to his knee injury while Riley and I hiked the miles to Big Bear. There was a lot of back and forth on whether I’d also skip up to Big Bear as it was advised to avoid the upcoming section of trail. This was due to severe trail washout and hikers getting sick from either norovirus or algae in the water. In the end, after much deliberation, reading, and chatting with other hikers, I committed.

Whike reading about the next stretch to Big Bear, it was comical how many hazards we may encounter. There was the norovirus, toxic algae, trail washout (including waterfalls and cliffs), potential black bear, pack of feral dogs, the largest river crossing in SoCal, and mountain lions. All in addition to the massive elevation gain.

Resupplied at Walmart in Palm Springs. Probably the nicest, largest Walmart I’ve ever seen. Riley and I ended up leaving the trail angel’s house just after 4pm with the goal of hiking around 10 miles before camp.

We stopped at the Mesa Wind Farm utility house. It’s about 4 miles from I-10 and the energy company offers water, snacks, food, and ice cream to hikers. We both got an ice cream sandwich, filled our waters, and continued on. The inclines were steep and we really felt them with our full food resupply and 4L of water. Calf raises!

Our camp site was near Whitewater River which provided nice white noise to sleep.

Towards the 10 mile mark, we were feeling good and debated night hiking to get in some more miles during the cool evening temps but decided against it given the unknown conditions ahead.

Tomorrow will be a tough day.

Day 18 | Mile 218.6 – 239.9 | Mission Creek

Riley dubbed this section the Mission Creek Crucible.

The day started off talking to the other hiker we shared the camp site with. He was this 70-75 year old Japanese man whose trail name was Flying Fish. He had a traditional carp streamer (Koinobori) attached to his backpack which gave him the name. He had previously done the Appalachian Trail in the Eastern US.

We started off behind this ultralight hiker we dubbed “The Messiah” because of his pants that blew in the wind like some sort of Jedi. He had a very small backpack, no trekking poles, and moved quickly. When we arrived at the first river crossing of the day, The Messiah crossed using a downed tree with an ease that can only be described as biblical. We didn’t think it was worth the risk of crossing the log with our heavy packs in that location so we moved upstream and found a spot that wasn’t as deep nor flowing as fast. We attempted to cross without getting wet and did reach the other side… with double soakers all around. We did take our socks off and soles out of our shoes so everything would dry out faster.

We collected water here which was our first water grab in the potentially contaminated area. We brought a chlorine bleach dropper to sterilize the water in addition to filtering. The bleach is to kill viruses that are too small to be filtered as well as neutralize the toxins released by the algae. As you may have guessed, bleached water is horrendous. It leaves you feeling extremely dehydrated and  your throat feeling scratchy. We had two more water grabs we had to use bleach with which did not help our progress throughout the day. We decreased the amount of bleach used on the second and third water grabs from 2 drops per litre down to 1.

The next 6-7 miles were sharp inclines and declines to bring us over to Mission Creek. At Mission Creek, we went through the washout zone for approximately 12 miles. It was grueling; slow moving over cobble and boulders, around 15 water crossings, and all climbing without shade. We were averaging just under 2 mph for a significant chunk of the day. We hiked for about 7-8 hours with consistently wet feet due to the water crossings. Riley fell once crossing a stream and I tripped and fell hard after getting snagged by a tree root. It was not enjoyable, to say the least.

The creek washout itself was impressive. Nearly all of the soil had been removed exposing the rock canyon walls. The washout was the result of significant rainfall from Tropical Storm Hillary that hit the California coast in 2023. It must have been an immense amount of water that came through.

We were “yoyoing” with Flying Fish and a French couple we started with back at the border throughout the day. We were passed by a guy from the trail angel’s house who had left that morning and had already completed 20 miles. He said he was aiming for another 10 or more that day. He was an Iraq War veteran diagnosed with PTSD and said that hiking helped him with it. Very nice guy. Hardcore hiker; moved very quickly and did 30+ mile days. There is always someone faster and lighter.

Towards the end of the day, we reunited with the trail for the final 5-ish miles. The grade significantly steepened compared to the creek bed. We were completely drained for the sharp grade increase after working our way through the creek all day. During this period, we encountered a rattlesnake. We never saw the snake, but the bush beside us began loudly humming from the rattler. Not seeing the snake made the rattle warning even more unnerving. We quickly got away from that bush.

On the trail section, there were multiple spots where we had to shimmy down off the trail and then back up where places had been washed out. What made this part challenging was our fatigue level. We had to carefully watch our footing and lower ourselves down but we just felt sloppy in our movements.

After starting our hike at 5:30am, we arrived at camp at 8pm. We gained 6800 ft. (~2060m) in elevation and hiked about 22 miles, all in. The previous day we did 2200 ft. (~670m) in elevation. By the time we got to camp, Riley and I didn’t speak, just set up our tents and passed out. Seeing the tents around the spring with the big pines, it felt like entering Eden after the day we had.

It’s difficult to convey the difficulty of the Mission Creek section but we have yet to feel as exhausted as after this day. As for the hazards, I did not feel the safety concerns over the washout zone were warranted as nothing seemed overly risky. And we didn’t see any packs of dogs, bears, or mountain lions. We’ll see about the sickness but so far so good. It was mainly just an inconvenience that the trail was destroyed for such a long section.

Day 19 | Mile 239.9 – 259.4

What a contrast to our day yesterday. The trail was intact and we only had 2400 ft. of elevation gain. The temps were much cooler at altitude. We slept in and had a late start leaving camp around 8:30am.

The day’s biggest challenge was a 16 mile water carry that was easy to handle given the conditions. I carried about 5L. So far, no signs of sickness from the water yesterday.

We leapfrogged Flying Fish and the French couple (Extremo & Patso) all day.

I felt really good all day remembering how difficult Mission Creek was. This was easy.

The goal for today was to get close to Big Bear and leave fewer miles for tomorrow. I think we accomplished that with only 6.5 miles to go before town.

Day 20 | Mile 259.4 – 266.1 | Big Bear

I had a great sleep overlooking town and we slept in a bit knowing that we only had a handful of miles.

I had another dream about water where this really friendly couple was running a tent site. We ended up camping there. In the night, the couple stole our water. That was the dream, very odd. The water anxiety persists.

We could see the Mojave Desert to our right along with some Joshua trees while hiking the final miles. I couldn’t help but think of Arrakis or Tatooine. This also marks the approximate 10% completion point of the PCT! Hard to believe.

We made it to Highway 18 just around 9am and caught a ride with trail angel Kenny. Kenny took us to see a newborn wild donkey. It was very cute. When the mine sin the area closed, they released all of the working animals. Now, these donkeys are protected in California under an act that protects wild horses.

In town, we reunited with Lando at the Grizzly Manor Cafe. It’s a funky little breakfast spot that has its walls covered in autographed photos, money, stickers, etc. I had a classic brekky that was delicious. We loved from there to a patio and had a few beers.

I had a physio appointment in the afternoon to assess some minor muscle tension in my left calf and tendon pain on my left ankle. Thank you, Ma! Felt much better after the appt. And I picked up a care package FROM Mom as well. The freeze dried bananas and strawberries really turned around the morning oatmeal.

Ended the evening by going out for dinner. Good day in town.

Day 21 | Zero

Relaxing day in Big Bear doing chores and kicking back. We went down to the annual Grill & Chill which is Big Bear’s summer kick off BBQ event. Had a delicious jalapeno beef brisket nacho bowl there.

Overall, Big Bear was a difficult town to get around without a vehicle as it fairly spread out. There is free public transit but it takes at least an hour to get around and the posted times are unreliable. We ended up waiting for extended periods or walking a lot to get around town. Mine inconveniences.

The highlight of the day was having a big BBQ steak dinner at the Airbnb with salad and ice cream sandwiches for dessert. We watched The Other Guys and Superbad on TV. It was a great night. Back on trail in the morning! Excited to get back out there.