PCT day 23
Miles 259.4 to 266.1
Start: the wild donkey campsite
End: The Robin Hood Resort hotel room in Big Bear Lake, California
At 1am, Shannon woke me up asking frantically if I had heard the noise outside.
“What did it sound like?” I asked sleepily.
“It was so weird! It was like a Hee-Haw, Hee-Haw, Hee-Haw sound,” Shannon exclaimed. Those darn wild donkeys must have been nearby. They started whining again on the other side of the hill from our tent. And even though I was sleeping through the donkey parade, somebody who shall not be named had to wake me up to listen to the “Hee-Haw” sound. Oh, boy.
At sunrise we woke up and packed up quickly in the chilly weather with the thermometer reading a solid 28 degrees Fahrenheit at 5:45am. We trekked out in our long sleeve shirts and thermal tights. The sun slowly warmed up our chilled bones and we kept moving to stop the shivering.
On the trail we passed by lots of Joshua trees that looked like something quirky and weird out of a Dr. Seuss book with their spiky poufs of fronds all over the place like a demented green Big Bird. Beyond some Joshua Trees we almost ran into a small band of wild donkeys. Four of the donkeys looked at us from afar, not too sure if we were friend or foe. The little donkeys were pretty cute but as whole they were definitely wary of us and kept their distance.
We knew we were getting closer to the road as more trash and broken glass appeared on the PCT. As we exited the trail onto the highway, we were trying to figure out how to get a ride the twenty minutes into town when a guy pulled up with his dog and asked if we needed a ride. We hadn’t even gone two steps off the PCT yet and we already had an offer for a hitchhike into town!! Trail Angel Bosco was so sweet and drove us all the way back into Big Bear Lake, his old black lab named Scout looking slightly disappointed that she didn’t get to go for a hike yet, but she satisfied herself by licking the salty sweat off my arms, and was content. Bosco was a local Trail Angel who told us that there used to be all these gold mines around Big Bear Lake and Big Bear City, but that they closed up because there wasn’t much gold that was found. He showed us around the city and was so kind, dropping us off at our hotel and refusing to take any money for the ride into town. Bosco had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail a few years ago and just had the Sierra Nevada section left which is supposed to be the most beautiful and rewarding section, but I guess he’s saving the best for last.
In town we were able to check in super early to the Robin Hood Hotel around 10am and got a PCT hiker special rate where we showered and rested for a while. The hotel didn’t offer hiker laundry so we put our dirty clothes back on to go get some poke bowls in town that we heard were good. The cashier was super California chill and gave us great service, making us laugh a lot. We ate outside, refreshed and revitalized after a nice helping of veggies, rice and meat.
After lunch, we walked to the gear shop, which was more fishing oriented instead of hiking and we didn’t find a warmer wool shirt that I was looking for. When we came back outside, a controlled fire burn in the area was clouding up the air with ash. Pieces of leaves and debris were falling from the sky like warm snowfall, covering us in gray flakes and making our clothes smell like a campfire which drastically improved our hiker stink. We no longer stank terribly like B.O. and farm animals – now we smelled like a barbecue. Nice!!!
We went back to the hotel, vegged out and I fell asleep for about an hour while Shannon tried to call a Lyft or Uber to give us a ride to the grocery store and laundromat. He spent over an hour trying to get a car to pick us up without having any luck. I woke up after a beautiful nap, and the first time I opened the app and tried to get an Uber, one picked me up right away. Hmm. Shannon must be rated poorly on the Uber app – just kidding!!
We spent a few hours doing chores like washing our clothes at the laundromat, shopping at the grocery store and decomposing our food packaging into more compact plastic bags to better fit in our backpacks. We took turns shopping at the grocery store while one of us stayed behind to keep an eye on our laundry. As Shannon was shopping, I sorted out my groceries, removing all the packaging and putting it into plastic bags to make it easier to carry on the trail and less weight. At the store, a random guy pulled up in his car and asked if I was hiking the PCT.
I replied, “Yeah, I am,” and the guy went crazy nuts, cheering in the parking lot of the grocery stores which was super funny. It was cool having a cheerleader pumping you up! Later on, a 60-something-year-old PCT hiker named Splinter came by and asked how the hike was going. He was super sweet and we talked for a while about how things were going. I told him that I’d see him up the trail as he took off to go rest up his feet. Shortly afterwards, Shannon came back to the table and caught me snacking on some of the food I just purchased! He thought that the whole time he was shopping that all I was doing was eating the food instead of packing it up. This statement maybe was only partially true…
We both had bought a whole box of Oreos (mine were gluten free) and the exact same almond butter. Gosh darn it! Great minds think alike. I called the Lyft driver again and we got our favorite (and only Big Bear Lake driver), Heather, to pick us up on the first try! She took us back to the hotel where we unpacked, changed and headed to a burger joint for wine, beer and burgers. We indulged in some ice cream from a shop on the way home.
I was a bit drunk off a glass of California red blend from dinner and I accidentally dropped some of my peanut butter ice cream into the bedsheets when I was trying to sit up straight to watch TV and chow down on dessert at the same time. I forgot to tell Shannon about the spill and covered it up with one of the sheets. When Shannon pulled back the bedsheets to see the weird chocolate and peanut blob where I had just been sitting, he didn’t know what to say at first. He thought that I had had “an accident” in the bed, but it was just peanut butter and chocolate smeared on the white sheets… haha! We tried to clean it up as best we could while
we cried with laughter from the silliness of it all. We stayed up for a while, talking and watching TV and passed out pretty late. It was a good Near-o day in town.
