5/3/14 Saturday. 17 miles and 10 miles to Big Bear Sunday 5/4/14

Trail Magic Happens Again and Again!

It was cold last night and I'm low on food but have enough for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. We hope to be in Big Bear Sunday, 5/4/14. 

We'd only been hiking for 5 miles this morning when we came upon a group of hikers around a couch - of all things!

Inside the PCT Magic steel box was fresh fruit, cookies, soda, a register and an invite to stay at the Big Bear Hostel. We stayed to chat with the couple that were there. We all raved about the bananas which tasted wonderful!

We hiked through pine forest most of the morning then came out into high desert and started seeing Joshua Trees interspersed with other brush.  It was hot and windy, we hiked with our umbrellas up for a few hours until we stopped to rest in the shade of scrub brush and scrub pines for a few hours, waiting out the heat.  We could see the dry lake bed by a small community and ended up hiking almost all the way around it. Not inspiring country and just a trudge in the desert. 

Peggy is far down the trail hurrying out of the wind. 

Our goal is a campground just past Highway 18 above Big Bear. We found soda and water by the highway and drank a soda before hiking the final miles to camp.

We saw phlox growing beside the trail which was a nice pick-me-up after a boring walk-about in the hot sun.

 The camp, when we came to it, was a gravel area with a bulldozed burm to shelter from the wind.  It didn't provide much shelter. We pitched tents had dinner and because the wind was cold we got into bed.   John & Lorene, Peggy's cousins,  were trying to meet us in Big Bear Sunday night, they were our hosts after we were rained out at Lake Morena. We're excited to see them again.

Hiking in the early morning was nice, we crested and started down hill & were surprised to find water just before the road to town.  

We reached Van Duzer Canyon Road at 9:30am and started walking down toward town. Lots of cars were coming up to bike since this was Sunday. Finally one came downhill toward us and we got a ride in the back of the pickup truck to the Highway. 

Happy hikers!

This was our ride, he lives in Las Vegas & was coming back to look at the places he'd played as a kid. Thanks for the ride down the dirt road!

We walked to town and straight to a burger place for a big burger and salad. We met Papa Smurf on the highway, we were planning on going to his place to pick up our resupply boxes anyway so he gave us a ride. We showered did laundry and ordered pizza along with the other 12 or so hikers there already. 

John & Lorene came from San Diego at 8pm to pick us up and stay with them at a cabin they'd rented in Big Bear Lake. They're such good fun and we enjoy talking trail with them. 

We went the next day to do errands, get food things we needed for the trail, had breakfast & lunch and said goodbye. They dropped us off at Papa Smurf's house again.  We hope to go out tomorrow even though it looks like 30% rain. We both now have double wall tents, good in rain & wind so we want to put miles behind us on our way to  Wrightwood; 6 days and  94.5 miles from here.