Date: Wednesday, April 26th 2023
Day 21
Miles Hiked: 17.3
Miles: 17.3
Total Trail Miles: 276.7
Ascent/Descent: 2402/1809 ft
Start Time: 06:20
End Time: 15:15
Temperature: 16°C (61)
I didnt really get cold in the night so slept fairly well. I ended up being the first to leave camp so got some music in to get me going. I enjoyed walking myself this morning as the sun rose over the mountains, the gradient was nice and the views were cool. I felt very grateful for being out here and it made me want to have a big adventure with Marcus. I also thought lots about dad today, wishing I could call him to tell him about all the parts of the trip so far. I ran into a herd of wild donkeys, one of which stood in the path for quite a while before he decided to move out of the way. I took a pet chilled pace and had a break for a breakfast bar and then another longer break when I got near the Highway into Big Bear mid morning. Most hikers enter the city from here but we decided we would hike an extra day around and drop in from the top. The was some water and a little left off trail magic by the road (a vegan chocolate wafer), Andrew and Tito caught up here. We had already done almost 10 miles Andy only had 7 more so knew it would be a pretty chill day. I got a little lost on the next section whilst detouring around a blow down and end up thick in Old dead trees branches and bushes having to push myself through to get back to the path I emerged covered in twigs, some falling from my cap and down my back. When me and Andrew arrived at the river 2 miles on and i took my bag off, there were twigs sticking out of all the pockets and as i pulled out my water bottles to fill up more fell out, This is when Andrew gave me the trail name "twigs". The was a camping area next to the river so we decided to stop here for . We ended up here for over 2 hours as we knew we only had 1.6 miles left for today. Tito rocked up not too long after us and then about an hour later Jim showed too, we hadn't seen him since Idyllwild as he had skipped San Jacinto soo was ahead of us, but he had just had his zero in Big Bear, shortly after Eleanor arrived too. We all did the mile and a bit up to camp, set up and enjoyed the chilled afternoon and early evening before getting into our tents when we started to get cold at 7.