Saturday, June 4, 2011

Day 14 (5/31) Racing Against the Workday

The plan was to wake up at 5:00 and hike all afternoon until arriving at the Big Near post office to pick up my packages prior to closing at 4:30. This meant I would need to only hike a 2 mph pace all day - something I have been doing easily. Well, like all good plans, this one required proper execution, and that's where I made my mistake. My alarm was set for 5:00, but I managed to sleep right through it, and I left camp a full three hours late. Okay, now I just had to up the pace to 2.6 mph to make it - disable, but less comfortable. I set off down the trail and was holding a good clip for awhile, but a series of things would complicate the plan.

First, I came across the home of fine Hollywood stars, including one I recognized from The Hangover. This was ' Predators in Action' a group that trains and houses many movie animals. I saw some grizzlies, tigers and dogs, so that was pretty best, but ate into my time a little bit. As I was heading on I sae a hiker coming up from the distance, so I expected to see him in the near future. The occasion for it though was not a happy one. The PCT crossed a road and I thought that it followed the road some ways down, that is until I reached the closed gate at the end. I turned back, and there was Noah, who had apparently made the same mistake. We retraced our footsteps and found the trail a quarter mile back. More time lost - now I really needed to hike quickly. The last straw came about 12 miles out, near Onyx Summit. Right there we came upon the most amazing trail magic - coolers full of pop, bananas, and cookies. This was too good to pass up, so we spent an hour enjoying ourselves and relaxing. This fantastic cache was sponsored by the Big Bear hostel, a popular hiker lodging choice.  After it was clear we would miss the post office today, we slowed down and took the rest of the afternoon a little easier. As we were approaching the road, we came upon a series of pop and gatorade caches sponsored by the Natures Inn, the other to hiker destination. We helped ourselves, even though we were leaning towards the hostel for the night's lodging.

From the edge of the PCT at highway 18 it was 5 miles to town, and at 6pm that sounded like an awful proposition. So we decided to try our hand, or rather our thumb, at the time honored tradition of hitchhiking. Neither of us had done it before, but we were willing to tt to save our feet the walking. 30 minutes passed, no luck. We tried looking  happy, somber, needy, but nothing did the trick. Finally I ran back to grab another pop, and as I looked back, there was Noah abbott to load our packs into a truck. He must have a golden thumb I thought to myself as I ran back. We were driven to town by a plumbing contractor, who dropped us off st the best restaurant imaginable, where I demolished a salisbury steak and extra veggies. For desert we put down a huge dish of fried ice  cream, so the meal was a total success.

We walked down to the hostel, where for $25 each we got a room, showers, laundry, and time to socialize with some other hikers. We met Mondo and Sticks, along with Toby and Sprinkles (Natalie) w who we had been seeing ahead in the trail registers. We stayed up until midnight talking and hearing about everyone else's hike so far. After that I dropped in to bed and immediately the world faded away.

Miles Today: 22
Trip Mileage: 266


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