- Date: 2023-05-29
- Pct day: 24
- Start: Mile 285
- End: Mile 307
- Distance: 22 Miles
- Ascent: 1669 feet
- Descent: 4619 feet
- Start name: Little Bear Springs
- End name: Hot Springs
- Wake up: 04:30
- Start hiking: 05:45
- At camp: 17:15
- In bed: 21:00
- Where I slept: bed
- Shower: no? Hot spring
Key moments
- early morning because of high (for me) mileage day
- It was cold! Hard to get moving when it’s cold!
- Plenty of water and some water crossings
- Met some South bound (sobo) hikers, and I decided that I’m not sold on my trail name, electro. Back to Nick for the time being
- Met a nice lady who was hiking in the area and had a bag of chocolate, and was handing them to PCT hikers - she said there weren’t as many PCT hikers now
- I got thinking that maybe I’m outside the bubble of PCT hikers, this has its trade offs - fewer people, but fewer people, you know? As an extrovert I like people around.
- had a nice rest under a bridge that had a small waterfall going under it. Saw Beth there, she was there for a while before me, she left after a bit and I was hanging out by myself for a bit - this is an important detail for later
- Reasonably easy hiking from here, I was keen to get a bit of a move on because I wanted to get to this fabled hot springs early
- I heard from a friend I made at Scout and Frodos, Max. He has bad blisters and needs to take a few days off in a town to heal up - hoping that maybe we can hike for a bit around Wrightwood maybe
- the trail followed a creek called Deep Creek for the day, it was mostly downhill, and was nice walking, although my left shin and knee kept hurting randomly
- Eventually made it to the hot springs! A haven for hikers and people from LA - there are natural geothermal springs here that people have turned into pools with the help of concrete and sandbags
- Also a lot of naked people. I opted for clothes.
- I had a nice dip in the cold section of the river, then moved into the various different pools to try the different temperatures
- It’s hard to put into words how weird and wonderful it is to soak in a hot spring after a big day hiking
- A helicopter kept circling shoe where we were hanging out, and a dude was leaning out the door of the helicopter looking down at us. Looking for someone? Practicing?
- I was worried someone had hit their SOS button - turns out there was a kid earlier who had an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
- The short version is that the kid thankfully reacted super well to Benadryl, and so his family was able to take him home - which is a two mile walk back to a car park and then a 2 hour drive to LA
- However an SOS call had been activated from a hiker, as the bee sting initially looked really dangerous and the parents were keen to hit the SOS button
- The hiker canceled their SOS once it became apparent the kid would be fine
- However, they missed an extra text to respond to that was basically like “you sure you want to cancel” - and so because they didn’t see this, because they thought the had canceled it and subsequently turned off their Inreach, the helicopter still came
- And that’s how Chopper got her trail name
- After I had a nice swim in various hot springs I had dinner with Chopper and her friend Snaps, it was a nice evening
- Saw Lucky Marcela and a few other hikers later in the afternoon, I think the vibe tomorrow is to have a bit of a sleep in and maybe a soak in the morning in the hot spring before heading out.
- I also saw Mariah and she said “hey did you see the bear!?” And I was like, no, where? And she said “like 15 feet from where you were hanging out under the bridge - it was just up from you frolicking in the water. You were really close to it”.
- Oh god, somehow I missed seeing a bear very close to me, and also somehow it was all fine. I’m fairly sure I would have shat a brick if I’d turned and saw it. But hey maybe the bear just felt really comfortable in my presence?
Plan from here
- hike about 19 miles to nearby a picnic site
Animals sighted
- bear?
- 3 California racer snakes
- Squirrels
- Chipmunks
- Lizards
- Dogs
Gear thoughts
- keen to go cowboy camping soon
Physical condition
- left knee and shin sometimes hurt while hiking
Thoughts and Observations
- maybe the Sierras will need to be flipped, where I skip them and do them later, this season
Some of the bad things
- my left knee and shin were really uncomfortable today, rest is really important in hiking
- I’ve seen and heard of a lot of hikers having their solid “trail family “ by now, but I still haven’t had that happen yet - it makes me want to make sure happens, but it’s hard.
Quotes of the day
#pct #pct2023 #pctclassof2023
