PCT 2018 Day 13, May 5, Saturday.
Start 266.1 road crossing and exit to Big Bear Lake and Big Bear Hostel
End 291.5 near a small creek
Miles walked: 25.4
The hostel provides several of us rides back to the trail |or a modest fee– Jan and Bob, Metric Ton with his giant new pack, Violet (from the UK), and myself in an enormous old station wagon with luggage rack on top for packs.
Jan, Bob and I walk together for a few miles, navigating around a short a mile fire closure using a route on forest roads posted on the pcta.org web site. The trail had not been signed with the alternate route, so it was good we did our homework. Here is a Joshua Tree that was caught in the burn.
Jan and Bob were ready for a break, and I wanted to keep hiking, so we said our goodbyes. Nice people– hope to meet them down the trail. The route turns westward for several days on a narrow strip of mountain range, with the vast Mojave Desert to the north. Later, when the mountains turn north again, we will short-cut the turn by hiking briefly in the desert. Terrain in mixed conifer and broken limestone, gradually descending in altitude through the day from 6.8k to 5.3k.
The temperature goes quite high in the afternoon. And another large burn area is by Holcomb Creek.
I stop at a small creek late in the day, not visibly running but with pools of water cool and clear, gratefully accepted
Few water sources are available, but trail angels have left water in a couple of spots. Near my final stop angels had left a mini-dumpster filled with sodas and bananas. Strange but welcome. 