Hiking Uphill: 2,158ft
Hiking Downhill: 2,050ft
Distance Hiked: 18 miles
Post by Nick:
We woke up early, loaded up and organized our packs, and met up with my parents next door. We jumped in the car and headed from Big Bear Lake to Big Bear City (two different towns ~5miles apart) to hit up “Thelma’s”, a breakfast place that was highly recommended by fellow hikers. Thelma’s restaurant met the requirements but I rated them as an “ok” and actually preferred the “Teddy Bear Restaurant” that Mel and I ate at the previous morning. Post large coma inducing breakfast we’re taken to the Hwy 18 and PCT intersection to continue our hike….the same intersection where we later learned that our friend Royce was picked up by a local sheriff’s officer for hitchhiking and spent 7 hours in jail and now has a court summons for October….wtf?!? Royce was told hitchhiking is illegal in all of California…I’ll have to research this because all thru-hikers are dependent on hitchhiking to get into town for resupply.
We were a bit slow out of the gate due to our overly stuffed guts but eventually worked it off climbing back into the hills surrounding Big Bear Lake. As we circumvented the lake, westbound, we were treated to some spectacular views. The landscape was an interesting mix of evergreens, oak trees, cactus, and Joshua trees. We had taken a break at a water source which we had planned on filtering water from but it was mostly stagnant with all sorts of algae and insects floating about. Luckily a boy scout troop came by and we were informed of a water cache just a little further up the trail, which we took advantage of. We also ran into a second troop of boy scouts along with many other day hikers. It seems that many were taking advantage of the Memorial Day weekend.
Water Cache!
We continued heading mostly downhill through the mountains away from Big Bear and found a place to pitch our tent amongst a group of manzanitas for the night.
so pretty! Loved the sunset shot with the skeleton trees.
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