May 2nd and 3rd, 2015
I got up in the morning got on the trail the couple miles down the trail I ran across the exotic animals in small living room sized cages. In front there was a mountain lion and a grizzly bear. In back there are many other animals that you wouldn't expect to see on the PCT like a Siberian tiger and a Black Panther. It it sad to see animals like Mountain lions, which have a 100 mile territory, be in such small cages, meowing. Also there was a tripod German Shepherd guard dog that seems fairly friendly but I wondered how it lost his leg. Hopefully not by confronting one of the exotic animals and getting his leg bitten off.
I kept on walking and after seeing the animals in the cages it wasn't very eventful I was on my way to Big Bear. There was only around 15 more miles to go. The environment was sort of strange.
I was going from forest to desert to a combination of cactuses and pine trees. Here are some pictures from along the way.
As I was walking on my got to the highway I saw a family with two young girls and mother. They were telling me how they got lost and how they had a great idea to go to the road. They asked me if there's a campsite up the trail and I told him I think so. Then they asked me what I was doing. I told them I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Then they asked what that was. I told them that was a long distance trail that goes from Mexico to Canada. The girl says, "you are going to do all that." I said I'm going to try and then I walked down the road.
To get to Big Bear you have to hitchhike and I got a ride pretty quickly by an older man. He told me that he was from Croatia. Then went on to tell me about his family his granddaughter and grandson and how one is doing tours and traveling all over the world. I told him about the PCT and he told me how he had to escape Italy during the Bolshevik Revolution. I didn't really understand why he did this but maybe if I knew more about history I would. He took me all the way to Big Bear city which was a lot farther than I thought. It was probably more than 9 miles from the trail to the town. He dropped me off at the big shopping center. I went into Von's, the big grocery store. There so many options I think I overdid it and bought way too much food. I bought salad, fruit, tortillas, flatbread, a whole bunch of granola bars, yogurt... and the list goes on. I went to check out and it was a lot more money than I thought but that's what you get with hiker hunger. I was about to leave the check cashier gave me my change and said,"Thank you for begging." I didn't pay attention I said okay. I start walking off and then I thought about what she said. I guess coming off the Pacific crest Trail and resupplying and in these big cities I get mistaken as a homeless person that begs all day to buy box salads and yogurt. (After a day I thought about what she said and was really upset. Then I realized that I was bagging my own groceries and remember that's not common in the States. I got used to doing it automatically in Korea, Russia and France. So, the lady was thanking me for bagging not begging.)
I went out to the parking lot and by this time it was getting dark so I decided it's time to find some place to camp. I called up a trail angel and told them I was at Von's and it sounded like they're gonna pick me up but it was hard to hear them on my phone. I waited for over an hour and I finally gave up and headed up into the mountains to find a place to camp. I went way up the mountain and there was lots of covers and other stuff scattered around his far away from the city. I got into my sleeping bag and called my girlfriend. As I was talking to her a homeless person walked up the trail. I was kind of surprised. I said hi and asked if it's okay if I sleep here. He said it was okay he just didn't like vandals in the area. During this time I was on speakerphone with my girlfriend and felt kinda awkward. But I went to sleep anyways.
I got up fairly early and instead of hitchhiking back to the trail I decided to go to the lake and find another way to the trail. I got to the lake and it was nice day so I went swimming and cleaned up. While I was walking back there was a girl and a guy walking towards the lake. While they were coming down to the beach they kept looking at my backpack. I was I hoping this girl doesn't try to do anything with my stuff and I was thinking all these bad thoughts. The she came at me and she said are you hiking the PCT. I said,"yeah, I am." She told me her boyfriend did the AT last year and she said that it's awesome that I'm hiking the PCT and asked me if I need any food or water.
I declined and went up the trail hoping to find somewhere to charge my phone and battery at the lake but I had no luck. I decided just to keep on going to the next town and hope that my phone my camera and my battery pack stay charged enough so I could use them. Hiking up the trail I didn't get very far because my backpack was loaded down. I think I made it around 14 miles on the trail and heard a stream so I hiked down to it and set up camp.
I and up getting to camp and decided that I need to work on my blog so I went there early and started working. Then I realized that my battery pack was not charging it was already dead and my phone was also dying it only had 60% battery. Then I looked at the map and saw that 50 miles away was a McDonald's. So my goal was to get to this McDonald's as soon as possible
Also past the 300 mile mark on the PCT.
No comments:
Post a Comment