Last night the wind blew in gusts and rain fell intermittently. My tent held up like a champ, although I did realize one shortcoming. With no walls, and especially on a night where you're the only dry spot in town, you tend to invite the critters in. Still, as long as you don't mind being covered in spiders and ants, which is rapidly becoming less of a problem for me, you're fine. I will be exchanging my tent footprint for the actual tent with sides next time I see my parents, though that will be more in anticipation of mosquitoes.
I tried to sleep in today for a couple of reasons. First, the Wrightwood post office is closed weekends. As of this morning it was about 72 miles away. Meaning if I hike more than 18 miles a day I'll get there too early and will have to kill time in order to get my resupply box. Second, I wanted to let the sun dry my tent off before I packed it up. I think I made it until 7:30.
I hiked under an overcast sky, with a steady breeze but no rain. The trail took me along a cliff face above the river (pictured), which got bigger throughout the day as smaller runoff streams joined in. Hiking was easy thanks to the gentle grade of the trail, and I would recommend Big Bear City downriver to highway 173 as a nice 3 day trip.
Around 14 miles into my day it occurred to me how strange it was to have spent all day without seeing another person. I mean, out here it is the norm, and I am used to it. But it struck me how rare it really is in today's world. About a mile later I saw people. And when I say I saw people, I mean I saw ALL of them. I was coming around a bend when I saw a campsite and some people sitting in the river. With the wind I thought that must be cold, but shrugged it off. A few yards down the trail I saw a spring and immediately noticed the algae and the steam. Hot springs! I followed the trickle downhill to where stone and concrete pools have been built to catch the water, which must be high 80s to low 90s in temperature. I headed over to a pool intent on soaking a bit. That's when I noticed the grizzled old man, reading his book in the pool, wang out and a-flappin' in the stream. Not wanting to scream and run away, I soaked my feet with my back turned to him. Of course, that put me in view of the original couple I had seen from the trail. Well, more accurately it put me in view of the male half of the couple, who was also in various stages of displaying his wares. I let my feet soak for maybe 5 minutes before deciding that maybe hot springs weren't my thing.
Leaving the nudie colony behind, I continued around a bend to find a beautiful river canyon with blue skies above (pictured). The river basin began it's final approach toward the Mojave river dam, which was heralded by plenty of graffiti on the otherwise beautiful canyon walls. I was livid. I have two products that, since having started this trail, I now abhor. Obviously one of them is spray paint. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy street art quite a bit. Unfortunately, like many other things, the few idiots ruin it for everyone else. Incidentally, the other product is the helium balloon. I have seen at least one escaped balloon per day, deflated among the bushes or stuck on a hillside. 26 days, and literally not one hiking day yet without someone's escaped garbage marring the landscape.
I eventually came to the dam (pictured), which is a great example of overkill. Just beyond I reached highway 173, and a trail angel water cache. In the cache was a bag full of ripe oranges, so I grabbed one before moving on. I was headed toward the foot of a ridge when a trail runner came my way. It had been getting progressively more windy, and he told me if I rounded that ridge I would be up against 60 to 70 mph gusts. Fortunately, just before the ridge, the trail passed through a spring runoff channel. The spot had water and relative wind protection, so I decided to call it a day at 20 miles.
After fresh stew I went about setting up my tent. Even in the relative protection here, there were gusts that nearly sent the tent flying, even though it had rocks on all four corners. I had to line the edges with large rocks, tie the fly down to nearby boulders, and rope the whole thong down with parachute cord. All I was left with was a two foot wide gap at the foot of the tent, which I have to crawl on my belly to get under. Even so, the tent still flaps hard enough to make me a little concerned. Hopefully I'll ride out the last of the storm here, and tomorrow will be clear and calm.
By the way, I kept seeing these web looking pouches on plants (pictured). I thought it was spiders, but closer examination revealed 6 or 7 caterpillars living in each. Cool!
