Day 21-23 (april 27-29) mile 266.1-307.9

Day 21 was a “Nero” day, meaning we spent most of the day in town and then hiked a few miles on trail. In the morning Kenny, with a little help from Angel, cooked everyone an amazing breakfast and then took us into town. 

One thing that I didn’t mention in the previous post is that Kenny has some prominent right-wing political signage posted on the outside of his house, but he made it clear that he doesn’t discuss politics with guests. While it was a tiny bit distracting, other than that Kenny was an incredible host and all 10 hikers staying with him had a great time.

Big Bear was a really cool town! We all ate lunch together and resupplied for 6 days of food getting into Wrightwood. There is a fare-free bus line that runs up and down the main street, and there I ran into Nicola for the first time since day 1, when we hiked together for a few miles. There are some unknowns with the next few days as there is a wildfire burning near trail at around mile 350. The trail is closed past I-15 at Cajon Pass at mile 342 for about 20 miles. We are hopeful that the trail will open soon.

In the late afternoon we got a ride from Kenny back to the mile 266 junction and hiked several miles to 268.6 where we set up camp. Angel and Ian were staying with Kenny for another night, so it was just Chris, Ryan, Alashua and I, as well as 2 others, Anne from Los Angeles and “Day one” from Virginia.

Day 22 ended up being a high mileage day, as the hiking was super easy and flat. We did have to deal with some more patchy snow on the north faces of the terrain, but it was easy- no spikes necessary. There were great views of Big Bear Lake in the first half of the day as the trail continued through pine forests. 

The original plan was to camp at mile 285.6, but as there was still lots of time in the day we pushed on. After passing some other sites I came to a wide stream at 292.1, Holcomb creek at 6:30. I waited a while for someone else to come by, not wanting to ford it alone, but the rest camped at a site a few miles back. I decided to camp in a small patch of dirt next to the stream and wait until morning. The total mileage for the day was 23.5. 

Day 23 started off with crossing Holcomb creek three times. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it looked the night before. The trail began to transition away from forests and back into desert chaparral. For lunch we all stopped under large bridge crossing Deep Creek, taking a dip in the cold refreshing water. It was one of the more relaxing lunch breaks on trail and it was hard to get moving again. 

The rest of the day was easy miles following the beautiful canyon of Deep Creek, which the pct follows for 15 miles. At mile 307.9 we came to the Deep Creek hot springs, where there were a ridiculous amount of non pct hikers. I originally planned to push on a ways past the hot springs, knowing there would be a massive crowd on a Saturday afternoon, but I decided to stay. The hot springs pools were very nice and warm, but it was  hard to relax fully with all the people around. Total for the day, 15.7 miles.