Day 15: 300 Miles Down.

May 25th, 2021

Mile Marker: 303.8

Miles Hiked Today: 29

What a long day through so many different terrains and temperatures!!

Planner and I started hiking around 6 am and were moving quick because it was frigid. It’s the mornings I most want a hot coffee but find myself skipping it because I just want to get moving and be warm.

Conrad also told us his water had froze over night, he was a little bit further from us but we were still shocked by this! Fingers crossed our water filters didn’t break as we didn’t sleep with them in our sleeping bags.

The morning and majority of the day we had gentle ups and downs with an overall decent in elevation.

We started out freezing with beautiful views of Big Bear Lake.

Then we roamed through pine trees where the weather was still cool but perfect for hiking.

Around late morning we started skirting some hills and were able to see far away mountains that we figured we would climb.

Some of these mountains had also been burned by wildfires and You can’t help but feel bad. Bad for the forest and bad for the people. I couldn’t imagine being a local and being used to seeing a more lush mountain to now seeing it bare due to a fire. How heartbreaking!

After about 10 miles Planner and I saw a wooden enclosure in the middle of what felt like no where with a solar panel attached to the side. I had high hopes it was a solar shower and when I went in, saw that it was a glorified privy! That even smelled nice! It felt like such a waste that neither Planner nor I had to boom boom.

Early afternoon we reached a well running creek where we decided to take a longer break. It was magnificent. We saw so many hikers camped out all along it too. Planner and I once again dunked our feet in the cold and watch others follow along. It was exactly what our feet needed. After about an hour or so we continued on.

We soon found ourselves walking along what felt like a canyon for miles and miles. Most of it was incredibly beautiful but for some small sections, the trail felt a little too narrow where I felt a weird “Am I scared of heights?!” Pop into my head.

We also reached mile 300!! That 100 miles felt really fast!

We met a few hikers who said they were heading to the “hot spring” for the night but Planner and I couldn’t imagine pulling a 32 mile day just yet. Originally we had planned on a 25 mile day to find out that the camp spot was not ideal. So we continued…. For 4 more miles until we found a relatively flat spot to camp at for the night.

We are exhausteddd but excited to hit the hot spring first thing in the morning! Our camp spot also had a ton of mosquitos so for dinner Planner and I had to hang out in my enclosed one person tent. 😂