I had a remarkably good day yesterday after burning my knee the night before. Last night I truly slept under the stars and as I looked up at those stars I considered just how very fortunate I was. The burn was pretty bad and yet there was no pain to keep from continue the hike to where I could get it treated. While I was not prepared for such an injury with only small bandaids intended for blisters, an angel came by on a horse at the perfect time to help get the burn covered to keep in safe from dirt. As I looked at the stars, I just starting singing to myself “How Great Thou Art”

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the *worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the *rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:

I am constantly praying while I hike with either Hail Mary’s or Divine Mercy’s or just talking with God, thanking, praising, asking for favors, singing, but tonight seemed pretty special. My thoughts went to the trail Magic I had received that day. The chocolate and the oranges and how someone, some anonymous someone, had taken the time to put out the magic for hikers to use. I would think it is hard for you to imagine just how great this trail magic is. As a thru hiker you are pretty much a minimalist with food. You take just what you need to get to the next resupply point and you can not afford the weight of anything extra. So to come across magic … is…. well… magical. An orange or any fruit is just such an incredible treasure and pleasure. I wondered how different the world would be if we could all be as considerate to the sick, the poor, the homeless, the immigrant as people seem to be to PCT hikers. To hike the PCT and all that entails is my choice. However for the poor, sick, homeless it is hardly ever a choice. It is just a bad sequence of circumstances. There but by the grace of God, go I!! A mistake here, bad timing there, and my entire life would be very different. Yes, I worked hard to get where I am, but that does not mean those less fortunate worked any less hard. During the winter months the city of Escondido allows a homeless shelter but only allows a maximum of 40 people in the shelter. The 41st person gets turned away! It is not that the folks caring and providing want to limit the number but the city seems to want to limit the people. WHY? Is Escondido afraid of being known as the most generous city on the planet? I’m sure they are afraid of being taken advantage of and poor people showing up from all over the land to take advantage. I used to be afraid to give the person on the street corner with that sign that says “need work” or whatever. Do they really? OR are they trying to take advantage of my incredible good nature :). I finally decided that I did not care. That is was not under my control. If I have an extra “orange”, I might as well give it to someone who looks like they need it. If I have an extra “chocolate bunny”, why not give it to someone else. Americans are a generous people and we always chip in when there is a disaster and I think part of that is because we are sure it is a disaster, that we can help, and that we are not being played. I am going to dedicate myself to being just as generous with the people in my own community and never care if I am being played. Lately I have fallen into the trap of trying to judge if the guy on the corner is real in his need or fake. In the end, it does not matter.

Remember that lake I came upon suddenly yesterday? Here is a picture from where I camped just as the sun is about to come up. The water in the distance is that lake.

I mentioned I did not quite hike to the top of the ridge. When I do get to the top and look down this is what I will be hiking towards today and I work myself to McDonald’s and a McFlurry!!

On the way down, I run into Wildebeest again and he is just getting ready to start hiking for the day. This time he is eating Nutter Butter cookies. Two things occur to me. 1) I wonder what Wildebeest sacrifices in order to carry all these cookies (eating Oreos last time if you remember) and 2) I wish Wildebeest would give me a cookie 🙂

A little later, Wildebeest catches and passes me, and I don’t see him when I do get to McDonald’s and will probably never see him again. I wish him well and hope he gets to complete his journey.

The hike is uneventful otherwise. It was a little hotter and dryer than I expected getting to Cajon Pass. Seemed like when I drive past this area is was greener that is today while hiking. The final mile into Cajon Pass is a beautiful little canyon with a bit of a stream and some shade. Once you come out of the canyon, there is I15 is all its beauty and you have this sign directing you to a place that I think every PCT hiker visits.

I stop and try to clean up before going into McDonald’s as I look and smell pretty bad. I have a couple cheeseburgers and 6 nuggets and lots of honey on those nuggets and a Reese’s McFlurry and about 6 glasses of Lemonade. From what I can see, I am modest in what I am eating. One guy who came in after me had 5 full meals (drinks, fries, sandwich) lined up in front of him. Since Lenora can not pick me up until Sunday, I check into the Best Western for the night. Later that day Allison and Andy show up. They are just spending the night and head out right after breakfast the next day. My hiking is over until May 14th. I need to let the knee heal such that infection is not an issue and I have a birding festival in Ohio that I am going to next week. I will be back but it will be awhile. Here is a good way to show you just how dirty I get out on the trail. The picture shows the wash cloth I used to shower and one that is clean. I tried to get the dirt out of the used wash cloth as best I could before the picture.

In the morning I took a look and the burn had not miraculously improved. I went back to the water cache again and got some more water and cleaned the area again and also drank a lot of water. With a burn I figured it was even more important not to get dehydrated. I tried to bandage the area and thought I had done a pretty good job but after a little walking the bandage has fallen off. Bad thing about the knee is that it tends to move a lot while you are walking. So the movement and the sweat took the pathetic bandage off. So I stopped and tried again with some smaller bandages on the worst parts of the burn. About this time a hiker went past me and he announced his name was Wildebeest and asked how I way. I said pretty good and he continued walking. I laughed at myself. Only a PCT hiker would say “pretty good” with a bad burn on his knee, 4 toe nails about to come off, and a blister on his heal that was so big it looked like he was growing another heal. But stuff happens and you do the best you can. Just a bit later I came to bridge with a stream underneath and Wildebeest was nowhere to be seen. Generally people get out of site pretty fast but this was ridiculous. Anyway I went down to stream to get some water and there was Wildebeest under the bridge in the shade having a snack. He was eating Oreo cookies. We talked for awhile and I found out he only could do 200 more miles because he had to get back to work. He was going to do the PCT piecemeal. Looked like he was going to stay there for awhile and so I decided to move on. Not much further I came to some trail magic that contained chocolate/rice bunnies and ORANGES and a notebook for comments. Everyone had made comments about how they appreciated the Oranges. However, there was only 1 left. I knew when Wildebeest got there and saw that there were oranges but none were left he would be disappointed. I also knew that Wildebeest would catch up to me soon and pass me. So I took the orange and saved it. About 30 minutes later, Wildebeest did catch up to me and we stopped and I shared the orange with him. It was a good moment.

Had been walking basically in the desert up till the time Wildebeest and I shared the orange but as we came to the crest we saw the lake in the picture below. Quite a change of scenery.

About half way around the lake I could tell my second bandage attempt had failed also. So I dropped my pants and sat down and tried to figure out what I could do. About that time I heard a women’s voice say WHOA!! I called out that there was nothing going on here, I was just trying to bandage a burn. Turns out the WHOA was a gal telling her horse to stop. She was the one doing the PCT by horse that I had mentioned earlier. Because she was on a horse she could carry a bit more than most of us and she had a full first aid kit. Her name was Rhonda, trail name “horse-n-around”, but I just called her angel. He gave me some proper bandages and tape and instruction to get the burned area taped so that it would stay and then she rode off into the sunset.

After finally getting around the lake it is time to start climbing again over the mountains towards I15 and McDonald’s. I still had lots of energy and wanted to get some of the climb finished today and so started up. I had lots of energy and the climb was pretty easy. I had the feeling that I might actually be getting use to this. It felt good. Here is a sign at the start of the climb.

I did not go all the way to the top of the mountain but stopped a little short at a quaint little camping spot. It was small and so I decided to cowboy camp and just put out the mat and the sleeping bag and truly sleep under the stars. It was a beautiful night. Looking up at the stars, I had lots of thoughts which I will share in the next post.

This was a brutally hot day of walking and I took a number of breaks during the day and rested in some shade. For a large part of the walk you are taunted by water because you are walking along the side of the mountain and way down below there is a river with flowing water you can hear. There are also points where the water pools and you look down and think how great that would be to just jump into. At one point trail does go down to the river but at this point you are warned not to drink the water at all or submerge your head because the water has been contaminated with human waste. This spot is apparently popular to the locals for clothing optional recreation. When I passed through I did not see any evidence of that but while I was making my way out (what goes down on the PCT always goes back up) there were a number of people heading down to the pools from other paths. Once you leave that one spot you are back on the side of the mountain and the river is way too far below and too steep to allow you to go down. Eventually you walk your way out of the valley at the Mojave Dam and at this point the trail once again dips down to the river which has a good flow. I was so hot and on my emergency reserve of water and so I once again did something a little stupid. As soon as I saw a side trail down to the river, I took it. It was about 1/3 of a mile down and pretty steep and I went down and crashed by the side of the river and had something to eat and filled up my water containers and then climbed back up to the PCT. 7/10 of a mile later the trail naturally went down to the very same river containing the very same water. Just looking ahead on the map I could have saved myself a lot of energy. So at this point the trail is pretty close to civilization and there is farm land below the trail with little ponds of water and cattle grazing. I went on a little further and then set up camp after a 16.25 mile day. It was a good day. Just before I camped and just after crossing Hwy 173 there was a water cache as well with lots of perfect store bought water. It is amazing that people do this for us hikers. I am so grateful. I went about 1 mile past the cache and set up my tent, got into my sleeping clothes (short pants and a thermal underwear top) and started to prepare the evening meal.

The meals I have a prepackaged freeze dried meals. They are amazing in taste and variety. This night I was going to have Santa Fe Chicken. What you do is bring 2.5 cups of hot water to a boil, poor the boiling water into the pouch, stir it up, seal the pouch by its press and seal, and wait about 15 minutes and you have a meal. The only issue with this procedure is that I don’t have anything really long enough to stir the meal before sealing. No issue, I carefully slosh the mixture around, then seal the pouch, and then kind of massage the package and tilt it this way and that until I believe it has been mixed good. I do not know if from that description you can sense a disaster about to happen…. it generally works out great. This time however, I apparently got too rough with the massages and tilting and the seal burst open and the whole mess of boiling water and food came crashing down on the top of my leg and knee. Holly crap.. just a bit of pain. Looking down at my knee there were 2 clear spots where the first layer of skin had been removed and a very large burned area. I was not happy using the water I had (taken from rivers and treated) to try and clean a burn area and so I hustled back to the water cache, got a gallon of water, and try to clean and cool the area with lots of water. The area hurt pretty bad for a couple of hours but then subsided and I figured I would wait until morning to see what I was going to do. I did fix another meal and ate it all. Something Thai with noodles. It was good. I expected the pain to increase during the night but it did not. There was a quail nearby that sang me to sleep. Quite a noisy fellow and I was surprised at how long into the dark hours he sang.

The first day of my new routine and it really felt good to be walking early in the morning before the sun is burning down on me. I feel like I get many more miles in the first 3 hours of walking than at any other time of day. I mentioned in the previous post about how the trail went on the other side of the mountain at Bear Lake. This is generally the case. The trail always seems to go on the “other side of the mountain”. Where the other side is the side that is generally desert. It makes sense the trail would go on the desert side rather than the “civilized side” and I’m sure it was a lot easier to get the rights to put the trail there. The other effect of being on the “other side of the mountain” is that generally there is no cell service on the “other side” and so you only get service when you happen to wander up to the crest and/or pass over to the “civilized side” for awhile. Here is a picture of the early morning walk where Big Bear Lake is still in my view.

Met a young man named Kirby today. I actually caught him… how can this be? Anyway, he was a nice guy and was not in any hurry and so we kept passing each other on breaks and ended up camping at the same place this night. The camping spot was right next to a river and it was pretty and quiet. There was a town about 4 miles away and Kirby was going into town to get some needed things and so I never saw him after that. I think I actually may be faster than Kirby which means Kirby is really not in any hurry and is just taking time to smell the roses. Good for him!!

It was a 20 mile day. I like the new routine. For dinner I had risotto and chicken and I ate both servings and it was delicious.

So after a relaxing Monday in Big Bear it was time to get out on the trail again on Tuesday morning. Big Bear Hostel had said they would give me a ride back to the PCT at 8:30 in the morning and so I walked from the International Hostel to the Big Bear Hostel around 7:30. It was only .7 miles from one to the other but I did not want to be late. Of course I was early and they were late :). Got a ride with 3 others up to the PCT. 1 guy was a loner even by my standards and he did not say a word and got out of the car and was on the trail before the rest of us were had hardly opened our doors. The other two were a couple, Allison and Alex, and this is the couple I mentioned earlier that seemed to be in lockstep with each other. Either they had exactly the same pace at all times or Alex was just very good at going at Allison’s pace because I never saw them except that Allison was leading and Alex was a step or two behind. For the most part the PCT trail is never wide enough to walk side by side. They were a nice couple and in no hurry and because of that I saw them quite a bit for two days as we would pass each other while the other was on a break. It was fun watching and listening to them work out when they were going to stop, what they were going to eat, how much water they were going to need.

So on the ride the PCT the driver pointed to the mountains across Big Bear Lake and told us that is where you will be walking. The trail goes on the other side of those mountains mostly but comes back to this side once and when it does you will be able to see the Big Bear marina and actually see the Big Bear Hostel. I thought to myself this would probably take about an hour to happen. It took way longer and I was shocked that Big Bear Lake was still visible the next morning. Other than Allison and Alex I did not see any hikers today and I thought that rather odd as generally a number of people will catch and pass me. Must have been some lull in the number of hikers starting the trail.

Since I started on Tuesday rather than Monday, I knew I was not going to make it to my next destination which was Wrightwood and so Lenora and I worked out that she would pick me up on Sunday early sometime at the McDonald’s on I15 in Cajon pass. So I have been walking since April 6 and on May 2 I should reach Cajon pass and I15 which will take Lenora about 2 hours to drive to. I figured I could make that distance pretty easy as it was only 80 miles and I had 5 days to hike it. So I stopped after 12 miles on the first day and set up camp. I’m not sure when it hit me but some time that night I realized that 5 times 12 is NOT 80!!! I think I did that bit of arithmetic while I was gasping for air going up some mountain. So now I had some catching up to do. During that night I decided to come up with an actual routine. I have always been a morning person and yet I was getting up on the trail later than usual and getting a late start. I have so much more energy in the morning than the afternoon and if I was going to make more miles it was clear I had to hike more hours. Faster was just not happening. So the routine for the rest of the week and probably the rest of my hike was going to be this:

4:30 wake up
5:00 really wake up
5:45 have a little bit to eat. Small piece of summer sausage generally
6:00 start hiking
9:00 to 10:00 stop and have a big piece of summer sausage and some hot chocolate (so at least a 20 minute rest)
1:00 stop to have lunch. Generally a package of smoked Salmon
3:00 stop for some sort of snack.
5:00 start looking for a camping spot. Set up tent and fix evening meal. A hot meal and eat a lot.

This is Sunday and was suppose to be a day of rest in Big Bear, but I was still 13 miles from Big Bear. In the tent I was trying to make a decision. Should I stay in the tent and just rest for the day or should I push on to Big Bear and try to catch a late Mass. I thought this day was suppose to be repeat of yesterday with a cold miserable day, a possibility of snow, and a night below freezing again. Based on this I decided I really should get up and walk. Turns out the forecast was the same AS yesterday and not for today. The day turned out to be a beautiful clear and fairly warm day and it was a nice hike into Big Bear. I was not at all sure where I was going to stay in Big Bear. I figured it was going to be the Big Bear Hostel but they were not answering their phone and they has posted signs on the trail that there was not room at the hostel for the 24th and 25th. No mention was made of the 26th. Also on the trail was an advertisement for the International Travel Hostel which offered a discount to hikers and provided both an evening meal and a morning breakfast as no charge. I called them but they also did not respond to my call. So there was a little uncertainty during the day but I figured someone in Big Bear there would be a room open that I could stay at. About 4 miles from Big Bear I ran into 2 young ladies walking the trail from Big Bear. They both had backpacks on and were actually walking towards the PCT hikers to offer them some refreshment. They had juice drinks, candy bars, and beer. I opted for a juice drink and it is really amazing how such a little thing can lift you up and propel you forward. I figured if I had a beer, I would just lay down on the trail and go to sleep and tomorrow they would find me frozen to the trail. They told most hikers were opting for the juice drink rather than the beer. Below is a picture of the magic they gave me. I saved the can and took a picture of it later at the hostel.

The PCT intersects HWY 18 about four miles from Bear City and 9 miles from Bear Lake. As I reached Hwy 18 there was a car operated by Papa Smurf (one of the next big Trail Angels) and he was bringing 3 people back to the PCT to continue the hike. He asked if he could pray over the hikers, they said yes, and he said a little prayer for their safety and that they would enjoy what they experienced. I was very moved by this. I would have like to stay at his place but his place was like Ziggy and the Bear’s with only an open area. I asked if he had ear plugs and he did not and so my snoring paranoia kept me from going to his place. He taxied me to the International Hostel which has private rooms for $25 a night. Papa Smurf said he wanted to get a look at the place. I gave him a good donation for doing that for me and will probably send him more later to further his ministry of helping PCT hikers.

The hostel was a comfortable and an interesting place. The free dinner they had that night was BBQ. Great. So what was set on the table for dinner was BBQ hot dogs, BBQ hamburgers, BBQ chicken. I had 1, 2, 2 respectively. There was nothing else on the table and so a balanced dinner it was not but it was good and I enjoyed it. The next day, Monday, I spent the day getting resupplied for my next section. Lenora was not able to be at Big Bear but sent a package to the Big Bear Hostel which I picked up. While there they gave me a hard time for not staying with them. I explained I tried but since they refused to answer their phone and posted messages about no room being available I did not even check. They finally admitted that they were closed for the whole weekend. However they said they would give me a ride back to the trail when I was ready. The hostel had dozens of inspiration sayings taped all over the lodge. Here is an example of one:

It was a cold night of camping. I did not get cold in the sleeping bag but I certainly had to have a long talk with myself to get out of it, pack up, and start walking. Eventually I managed to convince myself that there was not alternative and once I got started it was not bad…. for awhile… but then the storm moved in and the rest of day was really quite miserable. Cold and in the clouds with the strong wind. This should have been a very scenic walk approaching Big Bear but very little could be seen. I was in the cloud layer and could not see much. About two hours into the day it started to snow and I put on my rain gear. My rain gear is really quite good and I was not cold while I was walking but just got tired with the up and down and battling the wind. At one point there was trail magic that I missed. Apparently someone has set up a bon fire and was roasting hot dogs for the hikers and those that noticed (everyone but me I think) had a pretty good time that night eating hot dogs and talking around the fire. I missed the whole thing and when I set up my camp there was a freezing rain. I got the tent set up with minimal water getting into the tent and once in the tent and the sleeping bag was pretty comfortable. Getting up in the morning, my tent was covered with a thin layer of ice and the water in my water bottle was frozen. I again had to battle myself to get going. I should have been in Big Bear at this time has I kept my schedule and would have missed this storm. As it was, I was either going to just spend Sunday out on the trail as a day of rest or I was going to spend Sunday walking towards Big Bear. Most of the time the wind was strong enough to blow ice off of the trees so that it came raining down on my head. So really not a great day of hiking but strangely a satisfying day. Only bad thing that happened was the wind was so strong at one point it blew my hat off my head and down the mountain. Not sure why I can’t just have things fall on the trail but why they have to go somewhere down the mountain There will probably be more NOT PERFECT days I will face so this was a great opportunity to know that I could.

Short video of the day

Here was my campsite last night:

Before I went to sleep last night, I met a new hiker named “early starter” because, you know, he starts early in the day. Turns out we start at about the same time but he is faster and I have not seen him since. He was about my age and also had a device that his wife could use to follow his location and be assured he was OK… or at least still moving.

A little later this morning I run into “Glide” again and it is at this time I find out his name is actually Glide. It is the first I have seen him since Warner Springs and he tells me “I did not think it would take me this long, but I have finally passed you” referring to my parting statement at Warner Springs. He was no longer with his nephew who he said got a bad knee and had to stop hiking. Glide was now on his own. I have not seen Glide again.

Beautiful and fairly easy walk today. We just kept wandering up one valley, then another valley, then another valley and just kind of wandering around with a gentle increase in elevation. Started out at 3128 and ended at 7928. That is a healthy change but it was gentle. I like gentle increases in elevation. Here are some pictures from the walk. Just when you think you are going to run into a wall of rocks the trail will turn and head up another valley that you could not see right off.

As mentioned, I started out this day with Chardonnay and Mike but that only lasted for about 2 miles. At that point the trail heads up a valley and heads straight towards a saddle. Here is a picture Mike took of me just before the walk up the valley to the saddle.

The trail gets, or seemed to me to get, fairly steep and first Chardonnay and then Mike head out ahead of me and then Mike moves out past Chardonnay. I have about half way up to the saddle when I see first Mike and then Chardonnay disappear over the horizon. By the time I make it to the stop, both of them can no longer be seen. At this point the trail now descends back to the desert floor. After the difficulty of the saddle for me the rest of the day is easy enough and I felt good most of the day. A number of people pass me along the way. A number of people divert after about 8 miles to the Whitewater Preserve which is a hiker friendly camping site. I did not know it at the time but the picture below shows the very white desert floor which is where we are heading and the location of the Whitewater Preserve.

I took the trail less taken… I just continued on the PCT and bypassed Whitewater. I figured if I went there it could be another Ziggy and I would stay there the rest of the day.

A little later on I continue to follow the PCT. No diversions today 🙂

After awhile on the desert floor you ascend again to the crest and then of course descend again to the floor. I on the second descent to the floor I decided to camp pretty close to a stream. About an hour before getting there I was warned by a day hiker going the other way not to get too close to the stream as it was raining in Big Bear and the water could rise quite a bit during the night. So I camped a safe distance away. While coming into this camp, there was a lady on a horse that passed by going the other way. We just nodded at each other and said hi. This gal would become very important to me later on. Below is a picture that is fairly normal for the trail on the crest. The trail is wider and is clearly marked by the holes made by trekking poles. I wonder if these trekking poles are causing problems with deterioration of the trail in those cases where the pole is making holes right next to the edge of the trail causing it to be loosened and collapse.

Got up pretty early in the morning with intentions of doing a lot of miles. Here is a look down at where I was going:

I was already behind and needed to make some progress. I had myself getting into Big Bear early on Saturday but was already behind that schedule and it was time to start cracking. Still had 5 miles to get to the desert floor. It was an easy 5 files and once down, there was a faucet that provided water (the first in 20 miles). Here is a picture at the faucet looking back:

Along the way I passed another hiker that must have passed me while I was in my tent the night before. Her name was Chardonnay and she was walking alone. She was still in here camp and we basically just said HI at that time. However by the time I got down to the faucet, she had caught up with me and we got some water. She did not get much cause she was going to Ziggy and the Bear’s which was only 4 miles away. I got a lot of water because I was not going to Ziggy and the Bear’s which is the second of the great trail angel locations. However by the time I walked across the desert floor and crossed interstate 10 and got to Ziggy and the Bear’s place I decided to check it out and maybe rest for just a little while. After about 10 minutes there that all changed. This is an amazing place that provides FRUIT and other goodies and hot chocolate with whipped cream and you can take a shower and you can wash your clothes and you can sit in a protected area and just rest and talk with others and you can soak your feet in Epsom Salts AND just when I arrived they had ordered a bunch of pizza for everyone to eat. About 10 of us at the time. Seriously there was no leaving this place!! The walk across the desert to Ziggy’s was interesting because up to this time the trail was easy to follow as it was generally the only trail around. However on the desert floor there were trails everywhere. Generally you knew where you wanted to go which was towards I10. But they marked the trail well with big sign posts so all you had to do was look forward and walk towards the next big sign.

Here is a picture of the scene at Ziggy and the Bears just before lights out. About 20 people here by now and we sleep outside on the outside carpet. Ziggy provided ear plugs for everyone. I suppose I was not the only person who ever snored on the PCT.

The guy in the image is not me, but Mike. We had a good talk at Ziggy’s and we along with Chardonnay started out the day together the next day. That did not last long. I was too slow. Chardonnay separated first, followed by Mike who then past Chardonnay. Have not seen either one of them since.