WEEK THREE: DAYS SEVENTEEN THROUGH TWENTY FIVE (May 17 through May 23)*

*ish. Apparently I can’t hike and count at the same time.

Monday, May 17th: Going down, down, down and yet more down hill from Fuller Ridge. The first 3-4 miles were lovely–we looked down on the clouds coming in to the mountain valley. And then, long, hot, low grade switchbacks (practically wheelchair accessible grades, said McQueen, even if a wheelchair couldn’t handle all the gaps, rocks and rough edges). We finally got to the bottom-with high winds and Cat tripping and falling because she was laughing at Fred’s joke and not looking at the trail. And, at the bottom…a water faucet. Courtesy of the Desert Water Association. We filled our water bottles and tried to recover in the shade of a boulder. Somehow, after setting up tents in very high winds, we transitioned from PCT wilderness hikers to the kind of hikers that will order fast food on the trail. Sweet Ben and Grace and Eliza met an Uber about a mile away and got themselves to the In-and-Out in Cabazon and came back with hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches, which we ate in the dark in a circle.

Tuesday, May 18th: 15.4 miles today–hot! Got to Whitewater River (a creek, actually) with numerous others. Had a ‘women at the well’ moment with many women hikers chatting and filtering water at the river’s edge. Beautiful little pool to soak in–finally felt clean!

Wednesday, May 19th: About 16.8 miles. Up and around some desert hills and then to Mission Creek. Followed cairns, the Guthook ap, and broken-off sign posts up the creek flood zone for about 10+ miles. There was no trail. It was fun at first (choose your trail adventure!), then exhausting. We took a long siesta in the willows from about 230pm to 5pm, then hiked another 4.2 miles after that. Camped in a beautiful little grove of oaks up a steep ridge.

Thursday, May 20th: Steep hike up the rest of the canyon, rewarded by a lovely grotto spring, an abandoned horse camp…and, trail magic. Ponyboy had mandarin oranges and Gatoraid to share–and we saw Treebeard and the rest of the bubble. Freddy got his trail name (NuNu–after the Teletubbies vacuum cleaner character) after a rousing discussion of the social impact of the Teletubbies show in the 1990s. Got to 250 miles! Passed an abandoned exotic animal facility–someone spelled “wasteland” out in bones at the edge of the trail.

Friday, May 21st: Camped up and over the Onyx Ridge at 8000 some feet elevation, with frost on the inside of the tent and a little bit of snow. Freddy and I quickly retreated to lower elevations (Chris following rather more calmly) down, down, down, past Alterez Camp (where the rest of the bubble camped) and then a long meandering trail down to Highway 2. I ran into a trail angel (looking for people needing rides into town) who said we were only the second group shuttling cars on the trail that he had met in his four years of being a trail angel. Got into Big Bear after gathering up the second car. Cat and Freddy made a late and brief appearance at Cash’s b-day gathering. Cat got her trail name ‘Kick’ from fellow hiker Danielle.

Saturday, May 22nd: Visited the Big Bear Library and talked with library manager Ina. Did laundry, grocery shopping and had an excellent Indian dinner at the Himalayan restaurant.

Sunday, May 23rd: Left Big Bear late since we had to deal with a last minute change in logistics (we realized Memorial Day weekend was going to interfere with visiting the Wrightwood Library) and get the second car shuttled up trail. Camped at Caribou Creek (where we were thankful for a water cache) at just 8 miles. We fell out of the bubble of hikers we’d been in for the last two weeks or so–they’re about a half-day ahead.