Start point

Coon Creek Group Campsite, mile 246.5

End point

Onyx Summit Trail/PCT intersection, mile 252.1

Miles hiked

5.6

Wilderness area

San Bernardino National Forest

People I met

Cactus Ass

Carrot

Hope

Rex

Rooster

Ariana

The day on trail

Wow. Waking up today, I didn’t realize how absolutely massive this spot it. At night I just wanted to cook my dinner and go to bed.

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The cabins (yes, plural) are huge. The main one had packed snow berms around the rear doors to block wind. The satellite ones were basically uninhabitable in the winter. And they’re just beautiful and old.

While setting up camp last night, the crossbar that supports the top of my tent snapped. It always felt tenuous, but it survived the Wonderland Trail, countless overnighters in New Mexico and Washington, and almost a month on the PCT. I’ll email Nemo, the company, about it in town. I’m sure they’ll replace it. In the meantime my tent sags a bit at the top and the zippers aren’t as, I guess, responsive. But it’s still warm and secure!

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I’ve been carrying this dang trekking pole for, what, three days? The one I found bobbing in the Whitewater River.

There were rumors it was Mini Chimi’s, a hiker that knew the group I’ve been seeing a lot, because she lost a pole in the river. She was camping at this spot last night and said it wasn’t hers.

Quick aside. As I was getting up, who else did I end up camping to but Hugh and Michelle?! I was beyond excited to see them. They’re delightful and some of my favorite people I’ve met out here. I told them about the trekking pole situation and they told me it belonged to a couple they hiked with from the Netherlands.

Yay! The pole found its owner!

This couple had a really rough go of it. They lost all their poles, apparently. They also have a tent which requires trekking poles to support it. They also, like everyone else, had to traverse a lot of snow the day before and were using sticks. So getting that trekking pole back was a great relief to them. Luckily, they’re not far from Big Bear to get a whole new set.

Today, the plan is to get to the Onyx Summit Trail’s intersection with the PCT, walk the 400’ to the road, and hitch to town. I would be happy going to Highway 18, it’s barely a day of hiking, and hitching tomorrow, but everyone’s food is getting low and Layla and Alpha said I could stay with them.

Perfect. I eat my remaining snacks, including the ones I’d saved for tomorrow, and commit to the plan. I’m still having misgivings about the group, but I’m excited to get into a town that has a real grocery store.

The hiking there is easy. I knock it out in a few hours.

There’s some shortcuts across the snow that involve long glissades, when you slide down snow on your butt.

There’s some postholing.

Thigh deep!

And there’s this vacation ranch that we crossed by.

I got to the trailhead super fast. There was a water cache of three gallon jugs in a styrofoam cooler, which was breaking down. I say next to it, enjoyed some peanut butter on a tortilla, and journaled a bit.

The hikers caught up to me about 20 minutes later. I posited the idea of leaving a note and an offer to help pay for a more sustainable water cooler with the trail angel who keeps that one up. We found a wording we liked and I left it.

Some plans changed last minute. Layla and Alpha decided they wanted to stay together, alone. So now I don’t have a place to stay nor do I have enough food to get me through the next town access site. I looked at a few things, booked a bed at a hostel, and rejoined for safety in numbers (also, it looks like I’ll be bumping into this mass of people a lot and I don’t want bad blood on trail).

Then we hitched out.

My goodness. Big Bear it hitch magic. Within one minute of reaching the road, there were two hitches for the bulk of the group, leaving Luca and me. We got a hitch with the third car to go by us. It was the easiest and fastest I’ve seen yet.

I have some gear waiting for me at the post office, so our ride drops me off there. Luca continues to wherever the group planned to go.

I got my stuff from the post office, sign their trail register, and leave. As I’m leaving a guy drives by and asks if I’m going back to the trailhead. I say no, I’m heading to the hostel. He says “okay” and is about to drive off before I say “if you have room for one more, I’d love a ride”.

This guy looks over his car, which is packed to the gills with camping stuff plus a medium sized Australian cattle dog, and says “hell yeah, you can squeeze in”. This guy is Kevin and he’s part of the magic of Big Bear.

Kevin offers me his lunch. He’s a chef for the local (I think it was) Holiday Inn, and offers me a chicken salad sandwich, huge bag of kettle chips, banana, plum, orange, and a Dr. Pepper he was going to have while he hiked, but changed his mind. And let me tell you, when I finally sat down, it was the best chicken salad sammie I’ve ever had.

He proceeds to give me a tour of Big Bear and it’s lakes. He told me all the public transit within the cities are free. He gave me food recommendations. Then he dropped me off at the hostel, gave me his contact information, and offered me a ride to the trailhead the next day.

Holy smokes was that great.

I check into the hostel and there’s a really great group of hikers I’m sharing the room with. Carrot, Rooster, Cactus Ass (because he managed to sit on cactuses three times), Hope, Irish Exit, and Cowbell. Ariana is a world traveler who was also in the room. And Em! A friend! One of the hikers not in the room, Laura, hung out with us and was also part of some sort of hiker group.

We did our chores. Laundry. Resupply (they did their resupply, I did mine the next day). Showers. It felt amazing to get clean.

I had a little FaceTime with Beth while laundry was running. It’s always so great to see her beautiful face and catch up.

After laundry was done we went to get dinner and chose Indian food. I had some lamb curry dish and loved it.

I wanted to go out because I found a karaoke spot, but I was getting tired and the place was winding down. I leaned into the tiredness and went to bed.