PCT-2

DAY 11 is our first full rest day; we stay in a very hikers’ friendly hostel in Big Bear Lake City. No hiking but we still have to find a way to get to the grocery store , an adventure combining local bus rides, hitchhiking and Uber…

We load with food for the next 100 mile leg, plus indulge on all kinds of high calories food while in the hostel to replenish our lost body reserves! You can never carry enough food to compensate the amount of calories burnt to hike the PCT.

DAY 12 we leave civilization, back on the trail with other hikers we've befriended along the way. Next stop: Wrightwood, in about 100 miles.

The restart is tough with a detour around a burned forest area through steep climbs. But the next section rewards us with gorgeous views over Big Bear Lake.

We do our first “dry camping" that night i.e. camp far from a water source. We filtered water at lunch time and loaded more than 1 gallon per person to make it through the next day lunch stop. Backpacks were very very heavy!

From pines we go back down to a desert covered by massive cream colored boulders and jojoba shrubs.

Then we enter the Holcomb Creek followed by the Deep Creek canyons. The scenery is breathtaking with the trail cutting through the very steep slope. Better not have fear of heights!

Looking down to Deep Creek.

The sun is scorching and we appreciate when the trail comes to crossing the river and its fresh pools. Our group of hikers all take refreshing (and cleaning) dives.

Cooling off the legs!

Jeremy prefers to hike away from the parents. He is tagging along with other hikers and we see him only when we reach campsite as we tend to all more or less hike the same distances each day. We appreciate the parental vacation. When he hikes with us he whines about everything from backpack to blisters and takes constant snack breaks. With strangers, suddenly all is much better!

DAY 14 we reach the magical Deep Creek Hot Springs. We've hiked about 40 miles in 3 days since leaving Big Bear. Our reward is a pristine set of hot pools cascading info the rolling river. They're fed by underground volcanic water. We make it with plenty of time to enjoy. What a treat! This is one of the many “trail magics”.
https://goo.gl/maps/k41N8va44HL2

We enjoy much less the hungry ground squirrels which shamelessly approach our backpacks to steal food.

And...this rattlesnake which just passed by us. We were sitting there and thinking about setting our camp. Nevermind! The spot is already taken! 😂😂

Now our hiking adventure is about to take a new turn.

One thing we haven't mentioned is the annoying sinusitis that Joao has been suffering from since day -3 (started in Connecticut!). Mostly headaches, facial pains, disgusting smells and heavy production / discharges (sorry sensitive friends). Yes, it's been an added challenge to hike with this condition but Ibuprofen had been effective so far and had helped Joao keep going hoping it would get better.

Well, by the end of day 14 and after having increased the ibuprofen dosage (following the advice of a very helpful nurse practitioner hiking the trail with her husband and daughter) up to 800mg 3x a day, things didn't look good. Joao started a fever and no Ibuprofen would do.

Luckily we were “only” 6.5 miles from a road and we hoped to get some kind of Uber service there to take us to an urgent care. So, day 15 Joao dragged himself to that road, actually got helped by a National Forest ranger ½ mile before reaching it, almost fainted in the pickup truck and after some epic wanderings through several overcrowded Urgent Care offices in the nearby town of Hesperia, we all ended up in an Airbnb with antibiotics to cure Joao's sinusitis!

There Joao took a couple of days to get over the fever and “extreme exhaustion” (quote from the Urgent Care doctor) and we decided to stay put a total of 7 days to make sure he was back in shape to take on the trail again.

Now, we could write an entire book about this AirBnB. The PCT experience is definitely packed with all kinds of twists and turns on and off trail. Suffice to say that the place was supposedly managed by a young russian woman who had just married the son of the house owners, from Guatemalan origins. But the story got more twisted by the day. We learned he had supposedly rescued her from her exploited illegal immigrant condition less than a month before. We quickly realized he was dealing in majijuana and, albeit outgoing quite articulate and smart, totally irresponsible and full of B.S.

She clearly tried to take care of the place (a former ranch stuffed with eclectic antiques from his parents including awkward teepees in the front yard). But her thirty-something man was constantly acting like a 15 y.o., blasting hip-hop insanity at deafening loud levels all day, smoking pot until he'd pass out and claiming he was everything from a brilliant computer programmer to a music producer etc. The guy was clearly totally delusional. Needless to say his influence on Jeremy was very toxic. It got worse by the day and culminated with that delusional junky collapsing from both pot and alcohol in the middle of our last but one night there while he had turned on the cooking stove and his russian wife was nowhere to be found. Muriel woke up at midnight to smoke filling the house and flames in the cooking pan, and prevented a worsening outcome. The next morning his reaction was that God would forgive him!!! Yes my friends this delusional junky was claiming the utmost faith with church going and praying before meals, distributing Bibles around him and seeing no contradiction with his way of life!

Who said nature is dangerous with rattlesnakes and grizzlies!!!!!

We could not wait to be back on the trail at last. We'd have to undo all the negative influence this crazy junky had in just a few days on Jeremy.

Skip to DAY 21, gone hiking again. Back where we left the trail to resume our way to Wrightwood, with 55 miles left to go.

We've been asked what's in our backpacks. So here it is, staged on the junky’s pool table (which we had to clean up of pot and associated utensils before we could use it).

We chase every ounce to lighten our load. Incidentally we took advantage of our long pause to change several items of equipment to lighter versions (tent, Joao and Jeremy's backpacks, mattresses, water filter…). That’s another reason why we were stranded at the junky's place waiting for Amazon's deliveries there till the last day, and could not switch to a better place.

Muriel’s backpack as an example.

Sleeping bag (packed tight in the yellow bag on the filled-up yellow mattress), mattress (the little black bag on the right of the yellow bag is its packed volume but we also displayed it filled up to show).

Down jacket (red) hat and gloves and to their left is the rain jacket and rain pants.

The black bag on the left is all Muriel can take for clothing change (inside are long johns and long sleeve tee shirt for changing after hiking and cold nights, 1 spare tee-shirt, 2 spare socks, a couple spare panties, and a fleece). Baby wipes.

Stove and gas canister.

Water filter fitting to plastic bottles.

The tent is not shown. We share common stuff so we've been splitting it.

On the top right the big blue plastic cylinder box is a bear canister where the food needs to fit. It weighs a punchy 3 lbs (1.2kg) empty!

This displays about 6 to 7 days worth of food. Protein bars and tea for breakfast (Joao and Jeremy also take oats and hot cocoa). Various bags of snacks and candies all in ziplocks (pretzels, nuts, dried fruits...). Tuna or salmon pouches and jerky for lunch. Dinner is the most substantial meal, we try to vary between mashed potatoes, ramens, instant rice and pasta meals, couscous with dried chicken or bacon bits and whatever other additions we can fetch to give more flavors.

The rest is quite self explanatory.

That's our house on our back! Back to the very basic needs of life!!!

DAY 21

It feels so good to be back on the trail at last. The weather has cooled off and it's even drizzling when we depart.

The little bit of humidity from the sky is magic in the desert. Nature immediately blooms.

Flowers smell like honey.

A pretty lake is nested in the mountains and offers us a nice beach break on our way to our night camp. Joao is already back in shape and hikes with gusto. Jeremy however is dragging; he hasn't slept much for the last few nights with the delusional junky making him believe he'd make a hip hop star of him and other B.S. of the kind that Jeremy fell easily pray to. The first night camping he sleeps 12 hours straight!

The next day we get close to Cajon Pass where the PCT goes under the very busy highway 15 going to LA, and where there's a McDonald just by the trail which attracts all the starving hikers in strides!

We see the highway already from up an impressive cliff. The views are really great!

We start thinking of our next challenge: 30 miles / 5500ft up AND no water sources on the way...

Here's how we plan it: camp close to the water the day before, hydrate as much as possible; the next day wake up at 5 am, hike the mile or so to the McDonald's / Chevron store for extra bottles of water (5 liters each!) and an extra large orange juice and then go!

We hike under I-15 and the railway. Our backpack are soooo heavy!

Lots of train traffic.

The scenery is gorgeous but, as expected it's very dry.

So many flowers….but it's hot and very very dry.

Just ahead of Muriel who was leading our family pack, a woman hiker gets attacked by a rattlesnake she spooked unwillingly. She and Muriel got a big scare.

We find a beautiful spot for the night but, yes you guessed it, it's desperately dry.

We've carried our super heavy backpacks in the heat for 16 miles up the mountains where pine trees grow again. We're dirty with sweat and dust and we're exhausted. And we're rationing what's left of our water, to have enough for the next day to Wrightwood another 12 miles hike ahead.

Then we learn (there's phone coverage up there!) that our house in Tempe Arizona has suffered water damage from a broken pipe… it needs some significant work.

So we have made it all the way up to this Haven of pines, Douglas firs and cedars at 8500ft and now we need to go back to the bustling metropolis world!!??

So we go down to Wrightwood on a side steep shortcutting trail. Instead of taking a shower and resupplying for the continued journey, we take a Lyft ride to San Bernardino from where we'll catch a Greyhound bus to Phoenix. We hope to fix all the damage in our house and come back to resume our PCT adventure where we left it within 2 weeks.

Stay tuned!