PCT Day 14 — May 10, 2025
Zero day in Big Bear
Hostel Perch Camp
PCT miles: 0 miles
Total miles: still 272.5 miles
Elevation change: none
For as busy as zero days in town usually are, and for how busy this one was, I was able to find balance. A lot of work got done, and I also enjoyed a fabulous time visiting with a friend. The day was made all the more pleasant by perfect weather, the kind I was dreaming about when I pitched my tarp in Idyllwild, and I went to bed as I awoke, relaxed and glad I wasn’t the partying type.
Snoozing all the way until 6am, I was ravenous with hunger when I wiped the crud from my eyes and staggered down the hill and into the hostel kitchen. The whole building was quiet now, but the partiers gradually shuffled in as I readied my breakfast. Breakfast corndogs and hash browns for me. Beige on beige, dipped in my own special mix of Sriracha and Aunt Jemima. The hostel breakfast was running late, so I awkwardly shoveled the grease pile into my mouth while everyone else waited in silence. Some of them looked pretty rough. I hoped it had been worth it.
Soon it was time to walk off my lassitude and meet for coffee. Contentedly, I ambled along the main street, digging the quiet of a weekend morning. This was something Spice loved to do, wander a town before it was fully awake, and I loved the thought. I missed Spice.
Clarissa, aka Campfire, has popped into this blog before. She visited twice along the CDT, even hiking the lower portion of the Gila into Silver City, NM with us and writing a guest post all about it. Well, she was also in Big Bear now, so we met at Big Bear Coffee Roasters to catch up. The barista did something awful in my cup when I said, “Surprise me,” regarding the flavor, but I had only myself to blame and the visit was great nonetheless. Campfire is a wonderful human, one of the good ones who always feels like an old friend, even though we rarely speak. I could have talked longer, but after three hours, my cup was full (not my latte cup. I drank all of that despite the surprise). After a double hug, we said goodbye.
I was hungry again, so I moseyed back to the hostel, grateful for that interaction. I hadn’t realized how much I was craving a familiar face out here, and I’d been surrounded by strangers for the past two weeks. There were buckets of good people whom I’d had the pleasure of meeting so far, but there was no substitute for a good friend. These pods of thru-hikers might eventually know each other better than they knew anyone else if they stuck together, but I wasn’t even close to that with any of them, nor would I get there on this trip. The conversation with Campfire was easy and based on a shared understanding of our pasts. With so much superficial stuff long since out of the way, we got to dig into the good stuff. That was nourishing.
Back at my camp, I made small and multitudinous hummus, tomato, and deli slice sandwiches as my appetite requested, while doing internet chores on my phone. The warm breeze rushed through the pine, and squirrels chattered. I moved in a big circle around my tarp, following the shade as the hours passed.
Then laundry and figuring out my resupply. The last remaining problem of this trip was answering the question, how would I get back to San Diego from Wrightwood? I posted my conundrum on the trail angel Facebook page, hoping to find an obvious answer. The amount of food I carried from Big Bear would depend on when I needed to finish hiking, so it was kinda important to know. I wished that I had figured this out earlier. Oh well.
The details are boring, but in short, I’m not going to die or be stranded anywhere. There are solutions, and now it was up to me to decide which I preferred. Having choices is worse than death in a lot of ways, however, so I decided to sleep on it. My resupply wouldn’t be too different one way or another anyway, so that crisis was temporarily delayed. I hopped on the free bus once again, headed for Vons.
It was dark by the time I returned to the hostel once more, and it appeared that everyone was warming up for another celebratory night. At least there was an excuse this time, a double birthday. We sang the song and cut the cake. I finished my sandwich fixings, then ate a salad, and made some progress on my ice cream. That was enough of a party for me, and I retreated back up my hill to camp.
My warm bed was inviting. I didn’t need a light under the full moon. My clean laundry was a good pillow. I wasn’t quite ready for this hike to be over yet, but I was excited to start the final leg tomorrow. Most of the important stuff was taken care of now after a flurry of afternoon productivity. I was calm and at peace with the rest of this journey. All I need to do now was hike. I could do that, no problemo.
Hike For Days 