4/9 – 4/16
Leaving Little Bear Campground, we moved west through the winding ridges of the San Bernardino mountains towards Deep Creek Hot Springs at mile 308.
My trail family had been doing 15-20 miles per day because of the snow but we wanted to get to the hot spring and decided to hike further. It would be 23 miles total and we chose not to take a sit-down break until mile 300 to help us push through the day.
We had to cross through water a few times. I took my socks and shoes off for the first crossing because it sounded nice to walk through the cold water. By the second crossing, I didn’t bother trying to balance on rocks or logs and just walked straight through.
I’ve spent a lot of days on trail with wet feet and it hasn’t been an issue yet because trail runners dry relatively quickly.
We eventually got to the upper portion of Deep Creek. The water had a dirty hue but it was very cold and tasted fine to me!
I got to walk along the creek for miles and it was such a beautiful stretch. The hot springs were still a bit further but I enjoyed spending time along the river.
Mile 300! Meals with a trail family can include a constant exchange of snacks, seasonings, sauces, bites, and slices of random things that come together into weird combinations. We’ve only had one bad creation (Nick’s stew with added pesto, mustard, hot sauce, seasoning, and goldfish crackers).
This meal was a solid effort. We finally ate the 15oz bag of refried beans that Nick had been carrying for 90 miles. Pete had an avocado and takis, I had crispy onions and bacon, and we all used leftover hot sauce from Jack in the Box. We were primed and refueled for 7 more miles.
We made it to the hot springs with plenty of daylight to spare. I got there first and there was a strange crowd because it’s accessible to day hikers and is clothing optional. Once they hiked out in the evening, it was our place to claim.
We did some laundry first so it could dry in the sun and then enjoyed the hot spring. It was the perfect hot tub temperature and great for sore muscles. We were lucky that it was a warm day and I didn’t get cold at all while drying off (I don’t have a towel on trail).
Unfortunately, a hiker told me that the Germans had already left that afternoon. We were hoping to catch up to them after having such a good time together in Big Bear:/
After dinner, we set up camp along the bank. A few of us planned to cowboy camp again that night because we had heard that the squirrels at the spring would chew through tents to get food. They had chewed a hole in other tall Luke’s backpack the day before.
Some of us went in the spring again at night. I was on the fence but felt like I should enjoy it while it was there.
The night was winding down and I was ready to dry off, but a group of headlamps came out of the dark to join us. It was the Germans (Louanne, Lily, Lukas, Julius)! We were so glad to see them and stayed in the spring a while longer with them. It turns out they had not left Deep Creek and were only camping down the bank to get away from the sauirrels!
The next morning, Nash made pour over coffee for everybody and we lingered a bit before leaving. Nash has so many random pieces of gear that people call him Walmart. He has a guitar, a chair, supplies for smores, a pound of coffee, and so much more. I couldn’t believe how heavy his pack was. His actual trail name is Forest because he was always running to keep up with the Germans and he is an arborist.
The Germans are known for getting up at 6 am sharp so they must have liked us at least a little to break their schedule and hang out that morning.
Off we were to our next destination – 18 miles to Silverwood Lake. Rumor had it you could have pizza delivered to the campground at the lake.
After getting out of the canyons, I could see ahead to the San Gabriel mountains – the next challenge. I was excited because the LA mountains are where I started to branch out from short trail to mountain peaks.
We crossed Deep Creek one last time. I put my sleeping quilt and electronics in a dry bag within my backpack and crossed the waist-deep water. There were lots of water sources for the next 15 miles which allowed me to forget about how many liters to carry.
After hundreds of miles, I finally used my umbrella. It’s a piece of gear that people either hate or love and I’d probably have liked it more if I hiked during a warmer period but it hasn’t been necessary.
I thought Silverwood Lake would be underwhelming because the miles approaching it were gravelly and brown and the lake was nowhere in sight. After cresting a hill, the lake appeared at once and was not too shabby!
After 18 miles, we realized we had read the map wrong and still had 2.5 miles to the campground. Some of us thought it was worth it to hike further for pizza but the Germans stayed back.
We were especially tired after those few miles and then found out the restaurant in the nearest town only delivered on weekends. We could have fact-checked this earlier but the myth of pizza helped us hike further.
Ivy, Nick, Pete, and I set up our camp and began filtering water. The campground was pretty empty but one of the few other campers told Ivy and Nick that he saw a bear the night before. I thought it might sneak around while we were sleeping but that bear run up behind Nick while we were making our dinners at a camp table.
Emma and Shaw thought to store any scented gear in the camp shower and we followed suit by gathering our food and toiletries. We stashed everything under the tiled bench with a PCT hiker label.
I heard defensive yells and dogs barking throughout the evening as the bear pestered groups around the campground. I woke up that night to its snout lifting up the tent door next to my face and sat up to startle it away from our camp. Too tired to worry, I slept great that night.
In the morning, we learned that the bear snatched Emma’s backpack from her tent’s zipped-up vestibule. She chased it down to retrieve her pack before she and Shaw promptly packed up their camp in the dark. They slept in the camp shower.
Leaving Silverwood Lake, we walked 14 miles to McDonalds in Cajon Pass. After 4 days of room-temperature pack food, McDonalds called to me.
I listened to a podcast and a sermon and didn’t pause except to look at two rattlesnakes (finally!). Since the weather warmed up, I intentionally walked ahead of my group hoping to see a snake.
I made it to McDonalds just after 12 pm. Other hikers began to roll in and we made multiple orders while resting to escape the midday heat. We waited out the heat of midday with plans to hike just five more miles before night.
That waiting turned into five hours. It felt like a long airport layover where time didn’t exist. I ordered a lot of food while I was there and left with some burgers to do the “McDonalds challenge” which is where you only eat McDoubles until the next resupply. Wrightwood was only 20 miles ahead so it would be more of a novelty than a challenge.
The last five miles to the campground were beautiful as we watched the sun settle over the mountains. The evening was comfortably warm and bright and I talked with the Germans and Nash most of the time
We were 19 miles down for the day and looking for places to camp, but I had a dilemma.
There was a storm coming in two days. Again. A fourth weekend on trail and a fourth storm. I had waited out the three previous storms in town, but this time I had to get off trail in six days and wanted to get closer to home.
If I waited for the storm to pass, Mount Baden Powell could become impassible with fresh snow and I would have to skip miles. If I wanted to pass Mount Baden Powell before the storm, I had to go almost 40 miles before the next night. Oof.
I chose to try passing Baden Powell before the storm.
Nick, Pete, and Ivy were down to night hike with me and we hyped ourselves up to get to Wrightwood first thing in the morning. I said goodbye to the Germans, Travis, Nash, Emma, and Shaw at the camp and we continued into the dark.
The night miles were really enjoyable at the start because the experience was new and we were energized from our long midday McDonalds break. We talked and played 20 questions and were grateful to be covering steep exposed miles without the harsh sun. I saw a toad and a few bats!
Eventually, the games and talking felt exhausting so we walked to the sound of our footsteps.
After 10 dark miles, we only had a road walk left to get to Wrightwood. That road ended up being 7 miles straight and forever uphill. They were mind-numbing steps that ended at 1 am when we threw our beds down in the dirt in full sight of the highway. We call 9 pm “hiker midnight,” so 1 am felt delusionally late.
We had hiked around 32 miles that day, and it was mostly uphill for the last 18. Nick had to take ibuprofen to supress his blisters (his whole heel was shot), and Ivy developed new blisters on her heel and tore part of her shoe.
I’m so grateful that Nick, Ivy, and Pete went the extra miles with me that night. Hiking those miles was the only way I could try to make it home, but neither of them needed to lose sleep that night. They were taking a zero in Wrightwood anyway. It was a last hurrah with my first trail family.
A woman named Shannon gave us a hitch in town and drove us to the diner. Just like the other locals I’ve met so far, she made me fall in love with mountain towns.
Shannon drives hikers because she had a friend who did the Appalachian Trail and the PCT and she was grateful for how other hikers cared for her friend. She moved from a busy city to Wrightwood and now sells soaps and makes watercolors. She loves her small town life.
After a week and a half of hiking with a trail family, it was time to hike alone again. They topped off my water with their own bottles and we hugged goodbye in front of the grocery in Wrightwood.
I would have loved to spend one last day in town together but I have my fingers crossed that we’ll find each other later down the trail!
The next week was full of big highs and lows. After leaving my trail family, I realized that hiking alone exaggerates all trail experiences for me. Beautiful sights feel more precious and expansive, but discomfort feels consuming without somebody to laugh it off with.
I road-walked out of Wrightwood and planned to rejoin the trail at the bottom of Mount Baden Powell.
I got a full view of the mountain and felt intimidated. Many hikers had been skipping Baden Powell after frequent snow which made me unsure about my limited experience in snow. The last time I tried to rush over a mountain before a storm (San Jacinto), I tired out and had to stop early.
I didn’t get to the mountain’s base until 3 pm just after a southbound hiker (opposite direction) had suggested I wait until morning to summit the mountain when the snow is hard. Add it to the list of discouragements.
I am not prone to stress, but I couldn’t ignore that I hadn’t seen another northbound hiker the whole day and even the day hikers were gone when I got to the base of the mountain.
I changed into warmer clothes, prepped some snacks to keep on hand, put my microspikes on my hip belt (Han’s recommendation), and moved all my warm layers to the top of my bag. With few daylight hours, there would be little time for breaks.
I needed my microspikes immediately. I attempted to follow the switchbacks but they felt slow and I didn’t like walking sideways on the slopes. I unstrapped my ice axe for the first time and started my ascent straight up the snow.
The snow was so steep that my knees pressed against it with each step. With my axe in one hand and a trekking pole in the other, I climbed on all fours.
I was exhausted and post-holing but the experience felt much different than traversing my first snowy slopes a week before. I felt capable and comfortable.
I thought I was in for a miserable experience and was instead having the best time possible. My worries about needing to turn around or being too slow to escape the storm melted away.
At the peak of my music-induced dopamine rush of confidence, I sat to look at the view to the north and I teared up.
I saw my humble Sierra Pelona mountains by home as they held clouds back from the expansive Mojave. I was summiting Baden Powell in the nick of time and it was becoming a really great day.
I saw one other person before summiting – a back-country skier who hiked all the way to the top for a single ride back down. Seeing them fly down the mountain’s face was as entertaining as spotting a wild animal.
The view from the top of Baden Powell was phenomenal. Clouds were settled low to the south and the north was clear. I always hope for a view above the clouds when I hike up high, so this was the cherry on top.
Although I wanted to soak in the views and stay on the PCT, it was difficult to stabilize myself in the strong, frigid wind.
The sun was setting in an hour and the storm was still coming. The only way I could keep hiking through the Angeles mountains without mountaineering experience was to lose a few thousand feet in elevation.
It was time to go off-route again. I glissaded down from the summit using my ice axe as a brake until I got past the cornices. I felt confident I could figure out a way off the mountain and used elevation maps to find a promising canyon.
I glissaded most of my way down that canyon until I found the Angeles Crest highway. Climbing up Baden Powell and route finding my way off the mountain felt like a true adventure. The inconvenience of a storm had given me one of my favorite experiences on trail so far.
I learned quickly that my $130 wind pants were not cut out for glissading. My foam mat and avocado were less expensive casualties but appropriately mourned.
I decided to keep walking into the night while the weather was clear.
Then, the road was closed.
Not just closed – completely buried by snow and rock falls.
I imagined having to backtrack 14 miles to Wrightwood until I saw footsteps on top of the snow and followed their lead.
It was strange seeing a highway as popular as the Angeles Crest with no signs of life. When I stopped moving, I stood in dark and complete silence.
After I saw an animal scurry and knock rocks down towards me, I decided to cut the silence with some music. Using my phone was a luxury since I had to rush out of Wrightwood and didn’t have time to fully recharge my devices.
I passed a couple of tents pitched on top of the snow over the highway. How were these the San Gabriel mountains?
Sometimes the avalanches were so big that the road was buried past the outside guard rail. The lanes were obscured by fallen trees and rocks and I thought about how quickly the mountain would return to normal without constant road maintenance.
I walked on the road for three hours feeling the temperature rise and fall as I wound in and out of each canyon. Aside from a few slips on black ice, it was peaceful and interesting. When my headlamp died, I walked a final hour being guided by the contrast of snow in the deep black.
When I arrived at Islip Saddle, I was exhausted.
I slept in the pit toilet.
This was the beginning of embodying the ‘hiker trash’ mentality and it was a quick fall from grace.
- You go in the bathroom for a quick reprieve from the wind.
- You realize it’s midnight, you can’t camp at the picnic space, and you’re too tired to hike to the next known camping area.
- Wow, the floor actually looks clean!
- Goodnight.
The next day, I hiked what I could on the PCT but there was an official trail closure and I had to road walk again. Thank you yellow-legged frogs for being fragile creatures.
As I passed mile 400, the weather was foggy and cold. At one point on the road, I watched a truck bed full of hitchhikers zoom by me and we waved at each other. I caught up to them at a campground and saw Cookie Monster and Troll again! We had met in Idyllwild when they hosted a swarm of hikers in their small cabin. After that interaction, I didn’t talk to another hiker for two days.
The rain was not a myth and it was a little bit aggravating. I ascended up into the damp clouds and dropped below them frequently throughout the day.
Although I wore my rain layers and covered my pack, most of my things got wet and stayed wet.
I followed the best practices and put my sleeping bag in a plastic bag since it was the most important gear for preventing hypothermia. Everything else could get wet as long as I had my tent and my sleeping bag.
That night, it snowed lightly which caused my tent to sag down against my face. I woke up regularly to punch the fresh snow off of the tent. After two nights of hiking into the night, I knocked out at 7 pm and didn’t wake for 12 hours.
For my second round of damaging gear, I popped the bag that inflates my sleeping pad and also lost my ice axe. The inflating bag was not necessary and became a laundry bag for my wet clothes, but the axe was needed in the future for the Sierra Nevada.
After reconfiguring my pack to use its rain cover it must have been snagged on a tree when I hurried through the rain.
I left a small note at the waypoint on FarOut in case it’s found but it’s a long shot.
In the morning, I enjoyed miles of animal tracks in the fresh snow. Raccoons, birds, small foxes or coyotes, and a bear! There were perks to hiking through the weather and I felt so lucky to be the first one trail.
I didn’t mind being snowed on while hiking because it was cold enough to bounce off of me. I pulled pieces of ice off of branches and rocks and snacked on them as I walked.
I was thoroughly enjoying it and a glimpse of blue sky had me convinced that the weather would clear up. I was looking down at brown hills to the east and thought I was about to walk out of the storm. Instead, the clouds closed in again.
As I walked downhill, things got worse. The snow turned into sleet which stuck to me ensuring all of it would melt into me and chill me to the bones. My wind pants were still torn and the water was seeping through my ‘waterproof’ layers.
The sleet and rain did not relent. My hands felt stiff and I needed to get out of the weather.
I made it to Mill Creek for what I expected would be a quick break to warm off.
I sat in the pit toilet for a few hours trying to warm up but felt the type of cold that made my core tense up. I stripped off my wet clothes and inflated my sleeping pad to separate me from the cold concrete. I sat with my sleeping bag over my head for hours.
Water got through to my puffy jacket so I had just one pair of dry socks and one pair of dry gloves.
With no cell service, I retrieved the weather report on my Garmin and could then understand why I was having a hard go. 35 degrees, raining, and “feels like 22” degrees. Seeing that the rain would be around past sunset, I resigned to a second time sleeping in a pit toilet.
I was discouraged thinking that I got stuck in place after days of hiking at night, up a mountain, and through the rain. It had been the lowest point on trail.
I didn’t warm up enough to make a meal for four hours and I had to reserve my low phone battery so I sat there under my sleeping bag.
Although I felt miserably cold and couldn’t get my things to dry (I contemplated and tested making a trash fire to dry my gear), I kind of wanted the sucky experiences of hiking too. It was better than setting up my tent in the rain and I would find it funny in retrospect when the weather cleared. I still wouldn’t have chosen to stay in town during those mundane hours because I wanted to get close to home.
The next day, I cracked the door open to a blue sky.
I watched as the first light melted frost and large trees warmed and shedded chunks of ice that crashed down noisily.
I found some Bigcone Douglas Fir trees! Their leading branches sometimes bend to the side at the top and the pinecones are easy to identify. I’m pretty awful at remembering how to identify conifers but these ones grow along my local trails I like them.
I encountered my first trail crew as they were removing blowdown with chainsaws. After 400 miles, I realize how important trail maintenance is. The fallen trees have had me crawling on all fours, limboing, climbing, or all three. Without regular removal, the trail changes directions around these trees or gets covered.
I made sure to thank each of the volunteers I passed and talked to one of them who lives in Castaic.
From Mill Creek, I had 26 miles to get to Soledad. I needed to make up for the hours spent in the pit toilet and the miles came easy after a few days of fog, rain, snow, and trail reroutes.
I passed the last of the snow and finally saw other hikers! Life was good again. I was so confused when I saw Shaw and Emma by a water source after I had left them at Cajon Pass. How did they get ahead of me?
It turned out they (and all the other hikers I encountered) had hitchhiked ahead and were now hiking south. That allowed them to keep moving and make it to the southern California mountain ranges after some of the snow melted.
Emma was the hiker who had to retrieve her backpack from the bear at Silverwood Lake. I later found out that Brody and Astro stayed at Silverwood the night after us and the bear tore Astro’s backpack and snapped his tent pole!
As I started to descend towards Agua Dulce, I felt grateful that I had made my goal after all. I was imagining seeing my family the next day and starting to write my best man speech for my older brother as I walked. I spoke it into my notes app and got all sentimental about how good of a life I had in that moment and up to that moment.
I didn’t look into my maps for much more than water sources and was surprised to find out there was a KOA camp off of Soledad Canyon. As I wandered through the camp looking for the office, I heard “is that a PCT hiker” and turned around.
Before I could even set my pack down, Richard and Joe were offering me a hot dog and a beer.
After talking for a while, Richard offered me a spare bunk and told me I deserved it since I didn’t skip Mount Baden Powell:) We had met before on trail but couldn’t figure out where. Later in the evening, we realized we had a brief conversation while resupplying in the Stater Bros in Big Bear.
It was the best kind of jarring change to go from days alone in the cold to the warmth of hiker hospitality. I was probably thanking them too much.
I had a warm shower, a hot dog, beer, macaroni salad, broccoli, pizza, ice cream, and nice company.
I hadn’t showered in 8 days.
The next day, I hiked 10 miles into the heart of Agua Dulce. The trail was full of tall grass and I put the idea of ticks out of my mind as I brushed against a million blades.
Almost to the 14 freeway!
The PCT goes under the 14 freeway and enters straight into the south side of Vasquez Rocks. What a cool way to enter the park!
I wonder how many times I have driven on that freeway before I knew the PCT existed beneath me.
There was fresh water running through Vasquez that I hopped around on my way in. I was tempted to scoop up tadpoles and bring them home.
It’s kind of funny passing by day hikers with my big backpack, over-sunblocked face, and buff wrapped around my head. Some must think I’m just overdoing everything.
Hiking to Vasquez Rocks was my first big personal milestone.
Back when I was a student at TMU, I think it was spring 2019, I went on a field trip to Vasquez with my geology class. At the time, I was a year and a half into my obsession with the PCT but couldn’t make it a reality with multiple more years of school ahead of me. I told some people about this amazing trial you could hike from Mexico to Canada, but I didn’t fully trust that I was cut out for it. It felt unrealistic to share my dream of hiking the entire thing when I had never been backpacking.
During that field trip, I saw a couple of backpackers passing past our group and all I wanted was to walk off with them. At the very least, I wanted to talk to them and ask if it was all worth it. I had never talked to anybody who had hiked the PCT. Was it a reasonable dream? I didn’t know. I stayed with my class and watched them pass by and hoped I could do the same one day.
Five years later, I’ve learned that the dream was more than worth holding on to.
I was able to get my hiker tag at the nature center in the park. Normally you would receive one of these from a PCTA member at the southern terminus but nobody was there that afternoon.
All went as I had hoped and my family picked me up in Agua Dulce on April 16th and we flew out to Indiana the following day for my brother’s wedding.
On our flight out of LAX, I looked down on the parts of the trail that I had traveled over the last two weeks. It hit me then that I’ll be reminiscing whenever I fly and drive by all of these ranges.
Before, I would see spots I had hiked in a day or views that I had enjoyed from one perspective. Now, I see ranges I have known step by step from end to end.
I’ll look down and think of 1 am cold plunges and karaoke and walking up Mission Creek and cowboy camping and snowy solo climbs and endless memories with hikers that I’ll cherish.
I don’t know how I’ll shut up when I look at a mountain in California.