Day 25, 17.30 miles

Oh man today was SUCH a rollercoaster! (And the trail felt like one too!) I have lots of things to say about today, and even more pictures. I hope my thoughts aren’t too scattered and you guys get a good sense of everything, because I sure can’t! 15 hours ago I woke up on the top of a mountain! 

I had set my alarm for 5:00am, even though I had a tiring/late night. I knew that the sun rises about 5:35, but since I was on top of the world, I figured it might pop up a little early. I didn’t sleep very much at ALL, but I’ll get to that in a sec. I sprang up and popped in my contacts for the day, put on some frozen shoes, took my sleeping pad and sleeping bag, and my bag of powdered donuts, and headed a hundred yards back up to the summit!

Ahhhh...

I was the ONLY one that witnessed sunrise from the summit this morning. Poprock and Lux who I had met last night were still snoozing, and everyone who I had passed on the way up the hill last night didn’t quite make it up in time. About 10 minutes afterwards though, a hiker named Raider came up, and I had him take my picture:

Me and my donuts 

Happy also stopped by, bummed that the sun had risen earlier than he thought it would! Either way, the morning was absolutely gorgeous. I decided to hang around up there for over an hour, before headed back to my tent to pack up around 6:30am.

As I said before, I didn’t sleep a wink. When I summoned last night just after 8:00pm, it got real cold real fast. I had envisioned cowboy camping at the top of the world, but with bone chilling winds whipping over the summit hill, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Poprock and Lux had found a couple flat-ish spots just below the summit about 50 yards, I went down the hill and this was the best I could find:

Not a trick photo: that’s the angle and grade of how I slept last night. 

I thought maybe I could put all my extra clothes under my right side so I could sleep facing my left, kind of leaning uphill.. Thatvdidnt work at all. My body was super sore, and I kept waking up about every half hour to shift around and try to get comfortable. I had my phone and water filter in my bag last night, so they wouldn’t freeze/break. I also lost my long underwear leggings! :( I believe I left them at the Big Bear Hostel, but I have them a call while I was in Wrightwood yesterday and they said they don’t have them :(

Anyway, I still have no regrets! Last night was an amazing physical feat for me, and pants or not, I’m still trucking towards Canada! I didn’t leave Baden Powell until around 7:15am, when I started my loooooooong descent..

Quite a nice view to poo to :)

The day was so beautiful! I’m 2016, when Claire and I did this stretch, Baden Powell was nice and sunny, but the next ~40 miles were foggy and cold and drizzly and wet! And COLD! 

2018

2016

It was pretty cool to actually see what was alongside of the trail and the sweeping cliffs! I descended allll the way down towards highway 2. Along the way I stopped for some water at the Little Jimmy Spring!

Best water so far besides Jacinto #nofilter

I talked to some dayhikers for a bit at the spring, and then continued down to Highway 2 and Islip Saddle trailhead. I stopped for some lunch and reminisced how horrible this specific part was for Claire and I. Claire’s knees were shot after Baden Powell, and I had a little hissy fit while trying to resituate my tent on my backpack. The trail goes straight up, and then straight back down to cross the highway again. So frustrating! This time was 100% different!

The climb was still brutal, and the mirrored descent still agonizing on the knees, but as you can see from the pictures above, the scenery did not disappoint :)

They day continued with climbs and descents. It never seemed like I was ever going flat or just slightly angled. I was either going brutally up or aggressively down! It was definitely a hard day on the body, especially with such little sleep!!

A Snow Flower

I had a pretty cool “encounter” today. Since I had slept at the top of Baden Powell, there weren’t any other hikers around me today. I actually didn’t see one PCT hiker all day after I left the mountain and before I arrived at camp tonight. The seclusion was a little eerie as I was far down in a valley, following a peaceful little creek. My mind was wandering and eventually wandered to the thought of bears.

Just as I was thinking of bears, I noticed something quite large in my peripheral across the small valley (about 50 ft away). It wasn’t a bear but a very large deer. We both got startled and then pushed to check each other out. I waved and clacked my sticks together lightly to see how it’d react. We looked at each other for a couple seconds, and then both continued on our paths. About 200ft uptrail I crossed the creek and realized that the deer was headed northbound on the PCT, and that now I was behind it! I saw it a little ways ahead and kept walking at a quiet, slow, pace for about 30 seconds. It realized I was behind it and it departed the path calmly and went back down to the creek, standing behind a tree until it knew I was long gone. Sorry, not a super crazy story, just a cool moment in time shared with that deer...

Eventually, after much more climbing and dropping, I arrived at a campground that Claire and I had stayed at two years ago! I was the only one here where as last time there were at least 5 other hikers!!

Thanks for the shredded coconut mom!

I did my daily stretching and yoga and gentle massage of the calves, shins, ankles and feet. I then ate a TON of food! Mom sent me these dehydrated decried beans that have been making great burritos with! I filtered a couple liters of water from the nearby stream, and then set up the tent for an early night.

While writing the blog tonight, I looked back on 2016 to see what day Claire and I were here at this same site.. it was May 24th! That means I’m about 10 days ahead of the previous attempt! Also, on May 14th (today), two years ago, we were just getting into Big Bear because of that long fire alternate we had to take and the storm we had to wait out in Idyllwild.

I feel very blessed and fortunate that nothing super major has gone awry yet this time. Im glad that my body is in good shape. I’ve taken some good habits from my wonderful Claire and am using them to take care of my body more this time around. I’m feeling pretty strong. Today was a lesser-mile day, but it was the most climbing and dropping I’ll have for the next ~200 miles in any given day. I’m loving life and loving the PCT! Thank you family and friends for supporting me and following along. 

Thanks for reading!!