Day 37
Today's Miles: 16.7
We had a hard time leaving Wrightwood this morning, it was such a fun little town. But we managed to get a ride back to the trail on highway 2 along with Robocop from a local trail angel named Mary. We were very appreciative and were back on the trail at about 8:15am. Immediately we got daytime views of what we had glimpsed in the dark while hiking the other night.
Our view out over the desert.
A glimpse of Baden-Powell where we would be hiking today.
One thing I love about hiking in the forest is not only the long range views, but the close up as well. For instance, trees in this area come in all shapes and sizes.
This one seemed to have grown itself into a knot at one point.
We took a short break at the base of Baden-Powell and Robocop joined us. But he was going to be taking the high desert alternate so we headed off to summit the mountain by ourselves. The climb up was fairly easy and there was surprisingly little wind at the summit making for a very enjoyable time.
This is the "Wally Waldron Tree" at the junction of the PCT and the trail up to the summit. It is mostly out of the ground except for a few roots and estimated to be over 1500 years old!
The view toward Mt. Baldy.
And toward the desert.
We enjoyed the views from Baden-Powell and moved on down the other side. The long stretch down was filled with wide open views so we took our time and eventually made it to Little Jimmy Spring where we filtered water.
Me...filtering.
We would have camped at the very nice Little Jimmy campground just past the spring were it not for all the stories of the scraggly looking bear who frequents the site looking for food. So we continued on for a couple more miles and camped near Islip Saddle just past the third crossing of Highway 2.
It's windy here, but we have a great Mountain Hardwear tent so it shouldn't be a problem. Tomorrow we will have to decide on what detour to take around a section of trail closed for an endangered species of frog. Odds are we will opt for the old alternate that requires a bit of road walking...but it beats going 20 miles out of the way on the official one.
-Tailgate
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