Gluttony in Big Bear

Big Bear Lake - Mile 274 - May 27_th, 2010

Five nights in Big Bear! We're spending about as much time in town as on the trail so far – have covered about 1/10th of the trail miles in about 1/5th of our available time. It’s not entirely uncalculated – there’s so much snow this year, not much sense in rushing to Kennedy Meadows, but the reality is that if we want to finish by late September or early October, we now need to start averaging 20 miles a day. I’ve hiked more than 2500 miles on the PCT, I mostly feel pretty fit this year, but I still find 20 miles a day, day after day, a little too much to enjoy – at least with my current level of motivation, which is a fair bit lower than last time I was trying to thru-hike. ThruCry starts to get super tired around the 15 mile mark and is worried about her ability to pull off consecutive 20s. Our sandals have treated us really well in terms of support – no foot & knee pain, but sometimes I wonder if people in shoes don’t have a little more spring in their step. Anyway, we’re heading out from Big Bear in a couple of hours and we’re going to push ourselves a little harder between here and Wrightwood to see how we feel. Ultimately, I’m feeling very unconcerned about the outcome of the hike this time around. I’m just down here to have a good experience with ThruCry. I have a lot of projects on the go back home, some that I was feeling quite passionate about, so I’m not as content out here as I was in previous years. If our hike gets cut short, that’s fine by me. ThruCry is feeling more motivated to try to complete the whole trail ... so, we’ll see how it goes!

As for our first month on the trail, it’s been a great adventure so far & we’ve made some great new friends. The class of 2010 is full of great characters! The one really sad thing about going slow is falling behind them all! We’ve hung out a bunch with Salami and Fugitive, a couple who definitely prioritize fun on the trail over mileage. Poor Salami busted a tooth here in Big Bear & now his service dog Egor has to pre-chew all his food for him. They’re off trail for a while, but we’re hoping to see them ahead. We’re big fans of Ariel & Asaf, aka Big Brother and Fly Boy – so named after Arial lost track of Asaf in White-water Canyon & the result was Asaf getting a search & rescue helicopter ride back to the old Fish Farm. We befriended Jackie & Ryan, a couple that picked us up on our second bail-out off of San Jacinto and then hung with us a bit in Idyllwild. We had some great chats with Yeti, one of several Israelis on the trail this year. We briefly met, but quickly connected with Shroomer under the I-10. Tie-die and her dad Gray Eagle were both great characters & we’re hoping to catch up with them somewhere ahead. Deacon from 07, our friends from Scout & Frodo’s ... really, too many great people to list – sorry to those I haven’t!

Some highlights so far have included: bailing from San Jacinto on an unmarked trail & discovering the Zen Mountain Center ... great few hours with a bunch of hikers under the I-10 followed by a crappy side-trip to Cabazon – don’t go there ... microwave & frozen goodies at the Black Mesa Wind Farm & Portal Research Facility (thank you for helping us help you help yourself) ... zero day at the old fish farm with Salami & Fugitive (including a few glorious hours playing in the stream – building a dam) ... best breakfasts ever at Grizzlies in big-bear ... dinner with Deacon, Jenny & a whole bunch of Israelites at Warner Springs (Thanks Deacon!) ... amazing evening on a saddle on the San Jacinto spine, clouds pouring right over our heads ... food, food, food and more food, but still losing weight! It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s been a lot of fun.

Well, I’d intended to take some time to write a really good entry this time, but even though we spent five days here I managed to do this last minute & now we’re late to check out of the Robin-Hood, which has to be the friendliest hotel I’ve ever encountered on the PCT! We’re off again ... after this much time off it’ll feel like we never hiked before for the first couple of days back on the trail. Not super stoked about this next stretch, but looking forward to an afternoon at the Deep Creek hot-springs.

Aiming to hit Wrightwood in six days.