Day 22 – 27 | Mile 266.1 – 377.9 | Wrightwood & Mt. Baden-Powell

Day 22 | Mile 266.1 – 285.6

We had a leisurely exit from Big Bear and arrived on trail around 10:30am.

Once we began hiking, we had great views of Big Bear Lake with Mt. San Gorgonio in the background. In the evening, we hiked through a really nice valley and ended around 7:30pm. My feet and legs were quite sore.

Day 23 | Mile 285.6 – 307.9 | Deep Creek Hot Springs

We had a nice early start to the day after our late departure yesterday. We heard there was trail magic ahead which motivated us to keep pushing. Once we arrived at the location where the trail magic was rumoured to be, we couldn’t find anything… The three of us were quite disappointed. On the bright side, it was now lunch time and we were at this great creekside beach, fully shaded. We stayed here for about 2.5 hours enjoying the water, eating, and relaxing.

After the siesta, we continued on to the Deep Creek Hot Spring. The hot springs were euphoric. There were about 10 other hikers and a few locals. We knew most of the hikers which was fun. The hot springs were way different than I expected. For starters, the water coming out of the spring was nearly 120°F and as you moved toward the river, it dropped down to 104-110°F (verified with a diving smart watch) depending on where you sat. The hot water collected in a stacked rock pool adjacent to the creek so you could do thermal cycles between the frigid river and hot spring. We spent a couple of hours that night going back and forth between the temps. It felt incredible.

This was the first time we met a number of hikers who we’d keep bumping into over the next few days. The group included the Aussies (Mike and Becks), Lelo & Stitch, Cleopatra, Pandora, and Ben. We had been off and on hiking with Pandora since Julian.

Ben is on the last leg of a long journey. He began sailing from France and arrived in Miami after 97 days (he stopped in a number of ports along the way). He then bicycled from Miami to Campo (PCT Southern Terminus) and is now doing the PCT.

Day 24 | Mile 307.9 – 329.8

Of course when we woke up, we went straight back into the hot spring. It was a nice slow morning and we didn’t leave until 9:30am.

Our goal was to make it to the Joshua Inn by the time it opened at noon. Despite the name, it is a highway dive bar with a sandwich stand inside that we heard were delicious. We made it to the trailhead just before noon and contacted the Inn. The vehicle that picked us up was tiny, towing a trailer. We managed to squeeze four of us in with our packs in the trailer. At the Inn, I had a meatball sandwich, two hot dogs, and two king Modelos. Maybe overboard but hey. Additionally, I packed out a pastrami sandwich for dinner later. They also let us charge our devices. What a day so far. They gave us a ride back to trail after and we managed to fit five hikers int eh little car this time.

Back on trail, that first mile after lunch was terrible. Definitely overdid it…

As we crested the hill out the valley, we were greeted with a great view of Silverwood Lake. It was stunning and so nice to see the blue water and green hills. I could see Riley ahead of me and was hoping he’d stop for a quick break. We didn’t come across any good break spots so he never did, eventually I took a quick solo break. Lando and I ended up camping separately from Ri.

We pushed another mile beyond Riley to a group campground just beyond the lake. We missed pizza and beer trail magic by 30 minutes…. Damn. When we arrived to the site, there was a large kids camp group sing along happening. One of the adults in the group came over to Lando and I and warned us he’d seen a small bear cruising between garbage cans in the campground and that since we were PCT hikers we’d “know what to do”. We were thinking a small bear wasn’t a big deal.

Flash forward 20 minutes and we’re set up in a well lit picnic structure with picnic tables and a sink getting ready to eat. I’m digging into my pastrami sandwich that I packed out when I see the darkness behind Lando starting to move. I take a closer look and see there are two bears coming out of the bushes! Couple things the warning got wrong. First, there was not just one bear, but two. Second, they were not small bears. The one was a large adult and the other was slightly smaller. We hopped up and began making noise to scare them off. We caught them off guard and they scurried away.

Now we were on edge and constantly scanning the bushes. I quickly ate the rest of my sandwich and started to pack my things. About 10 minutes passed before Lando saw the two bears coming from behind me this time. Textbook flanking maneuver. We started making noise and the larger bear of the two came about 15 feet closer to us before losing its nerve and running away. Lando was convinced he could successfully fight and choke out the bear. I told him there was zero chance lol.

After seeing the bear move closer to us, we knew they were fairly accustomed to people and might be troublesome through the night. We decided to try sleeping in the shower-restroom building. I set up my sleeping pad in a bathroom and Lando set up in a shower stall. About 20 minutes later, after I’m all comfy and starting to journal for the night, I look towards my feet near the toilet and see a loonie-sized spider hanging out under the toilet. “No biggie, it’s just one spider”, I tell myself. As I turn back around, I notice a fairly large spider hanging under the sink right by my head. I take a closer look and notice it’s quite shiny, deep black, and has a fairly large body. My gut immediately tells me they are black widows. I quickly Googled black widows in California (super happy the campground had cell service) and positively ID both spiders in the bathroom as Western black widows. I call Lando and gave him the news. I went and checked another bathroom and there was an even bigger black widow in there! The place was overrun.

Given the choice between sleeping surrounded by black widows or black bears, I decided to take my chances with the black bears outside. I left my all of my gear in the bathroom to not have any trace of food with me in the tent. It was 11pm at this point and I was completely exhausted. Lando ended up moving out of his shower stall and into his tent about 15 minutes after me. Black widows? No thank you. All things considered, I had an ok sleep and the bears didn’t bother us at all. I only managed to grab one photo of the spiders and zero photos of the bears…

We heard from Riley the next day that he too had an encounter with two bears around 4am. He woke up to the silhouette of a bear outside his tent and it brushed against the tent wall. When he realized the ears were outside his tent, he googled “what to do when surrounded by bears” and began to assess his situation. Number one was do not feed or store food in your tent. Riley, looked around and realized he was laying in a bed of pop tart dust. Number two was make noise. Riley proceeded to lay there in silence. Number three was to not surprise the bear. He did succeed on this one. Hearing the recount from the night had us roaring.

Day 25 | Mile 329.8 – 351.8

Woke up and hit the trail by 7am. We had the prospect of McDonald’s at Cajon Junction motivating us. McD’s was 12 miles ahead and we made it there by 11:30am.

During the morning walk, I had a great conversation with this couple from the Big Island of Hawaii. It turned out they knew and fished with the guy who I rented a truck camper from when I visited the island in 2019. Very cool, small world. It was fun talking with them about places on the island and why they moved there.

Right before McD’s, there was a guy named Jay setup on the road for trail magic! He was handing out fresh fruit, sodas, beer, you could charge your devices, and he was making sandwiches. What a treat after the morning push. We stayed with Jay for 20-30 minutes then moved over to McD’s. McDonald’s was overwhelming. All of the hikers in there, including me, gorged on the food. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I had 20 nuggets, a 1/4 pounder with bacon, large fries, and a Mcflurry. It was heaven for about 30 minutes before feeling like I just ate 2500 calories of McD’s. There is a challenge on the trail where you only eat McD’s between Cajon Junction and Wrightwood. I didn’t attempt the challenge but Riley and another guy, Pumpkin, packed out a heroic amount of McDonald’s food.

Lando, Ri, and I stayed at McD’s for four hours waiting out the heat of the afternoon. We were a bit hysterical and had a great time laughing and joking around. Dirty Fedora, back from our hike on San Jacinto, showed up to McDonald’s in the afternoon as well. Good to see him.

We left the Cajon Junction and had about 4.5 miles and 1800 feet of elevation to go before getting to a water cache. We began by crossing underneath Route 66 and a few sets of train tracks. Some really cool rock formations and some of the longest trains I’ve ever seen weaving through the mountain pass.

We ended up camping mid-way through the 4000 ft. climb after the cache with a large group. Riley and I cowboy camped for the first time. The rest of the group included Pandora, the Aussies, Cleopatra, Tate, and the Texan couple, Wolf and Dirty Toes. The camp spot had cockroaches and ants but luckily they didn’t bother us in the night. Only had four hours of sleep but it was a fun experience. Glad we did it.

Day 26 | Mile 351.8 – 367.1 & 2.2 side trail

Early 4am wake up but didn’t leave camp until 5:15am from moving slow due to lack of sleep. We did about 17 miles and 4200 ft. to arrive in Wrightwood around 3:30pm.

We caught a ride with a day hiker named Rebecca who was hiking the side trail we took down off the ridge. She went up and down in the time it took us to come down. We ended up chatting with her at the bottom of the hill for 10 minutes and petting her puppy, Montana. I asked her if she would be willing to give us a ride into town and she was thrilled I asked. She said she was hesitant to offer a ride just in case we wanted to walk to town and didn’t want to give us a tough decision haha. Rebecca, the ride was very welcome! Thank you!

Got to the grocery store and had a tough time thinking about resupply so I bought a pint of ice cream to eat first haha. It really helped.

That night, we stayed with two trail angels, Noah and Shelley, who offer up their home to hikers on a donation basis. They were the sweetest people. Noah and Shelley are unrelated and just met by chance a couple of months ago. Shelley put an ad out looking for some assistance around her house. Noah responded and started doing odd jobs for her. Not being able to stay where he was living, Noah moved in. He began talking about how he and his family had hosted PCT hikers in some form since he was seven years old. Shelley was all in and asked how they could start doing the same. They’ve been hosting hikers for about a month now. We did laundry, showered, used their hot tub, and Shelley made coffee in the morning. It was fantastic; one of our best stays.

We went out for Mexican food for dinner and feasted.

Day 27 | Mile 369.3 – 377.9

Went out for breakfast in Wrightwood with Cleopatra and ended up meeting Neck Tie and Eagle Cow. Great guys. I knocked my V8 all over the table which earned me the trail name Sippy Cup (don’t know if I’ll fully commit to the name). Neck Tie’s backpack base weight is 7 lbs. We swapped bags for the short walk between the restaurant and the grocery store and I could barely feel the pack on my back. Meanwhile, he was dying with my pack on with my base weight up around 20 lbs haha. Don’t I feel silly.

We hitched back to trail and started hiking around 2pm. We had an aggressive climb up Mt. Baden-Powell climbing 2300 ft. in 3.7 miles with 36 switchbacks. I think we only made it to 25 switchbacks before we lost the trail due to snow and ended following tracks straight up the mountain, skipping the switchbacks and trying to avoid snow but still wearing our microspikes.

We took a five minute break and a photo with the Wally Waldron Tree just before the summit. The tree is a limber pine and is an estimated 1500 years old!

We caught the sunset from the summit and decided to camp up there. Great stars, beautiful 360° views, and we had a campfire. Lovely night! Although things did turn quite windy which degraded the sleep but hey, small price to pay.