May 14: Kindness of strangers in Wrightwood

We marched hard all morning back up into the mountains. We camped last night with a group a hikers that we are getting to know pretty well now, enjoyed hearing about everyone's slightly different, yet identically routed daily journey. Koala and I broke camp and were off by 6am and nearly everyone else had already beaten us up the trail. In Cajon pass yesterday someone had gotten word of a trail angel in Wrightwood, and everyone wanted to make the 20+ miles (and 5000 ft of elevation) early enough to leave time for getting through the snow which would inevitably be blocking the way into town and for finding this trail angel and a place to sleep before dark.

We came upon an empty water cache and found nothing but two Clif Bars, one of which was being gnawed into just as we opened the doors to the trailside cabinet by a plump mother mouse. I grabbed the second, unopened bar as the mouse ran out of a hole at the back of the shelf, curiously leaving a nest full of her young all alone to fend for themselves, were I so inclined as to want to have had them for breakfast as well. We pushed onward, pondering this mama mouse's negligence -- how curious the world of animals can be. For example, we've seen two snakes so far this month. The first was sleeping. We swore it must have been dead, lying there, eyes wide open, us standing less than a foot away, ogling it's scaly coil of belly. Eventually she flicked her tongue, that's it. It was hardly the terrifying rattle which we have been preparing daily to have our blood curdled by. And then yesterday, we were actually rattled at, as we dropped down into Lone Pine canyon just before sundown, when those in the cold-blooded world of temptation and venom come out from their hiding spots, when those legless personifiers of pure evil and sin for a good chunk of this God-fearing planet slither out and try to enjoy a nice stretch of open sun-baked path at last. Well, we tromped by and scared this one half to death. His rattle sounded like a broken toy, pre-pubescent or geriatric, and his body went flailing wildly down the hillside, nothing menacing in this move. We barely caught a glimpse of him, not even time for a photo-op.

Other animals seen: mainly lizards, of a few varieties, horned toads, jack-rabbits, one fine coyote, just today . . .

We did nearly our entire ascent and 14 miles by noon today, an achievement which we were proud of and congratulated ourselves with cookies and dry, uncoked instant mashed potatoes (water rationing was necessary today, for the very fist time this trip). The afternoon was difficult and we lost the trail under snow cover for a good portion of the remaining 8 miles until the highway crossing to Wrightwood. Eliza has a hard time in the snow and we may skip the next steep and potentially dangerous snowy traverse of Mt. Baden-Powell. We haven't yet figured out how to work together through these most difficult of sections -- God knows I am trying to see us both through them.

We did make it to the highway, relieved at finishing the day's hike early at around 4:00. Immediately we scored a ride, along with a guy from Davis, Duck Boy, who we finished the day with, and were on our way into Wrightwood before we had even gotten around to taking our packs off.

From here on out, people started acting really, really nice to us hikers. First off, the old couple who drove us to town treated us to ice cream at the local sweet shop, sat with us at a picnic table and asked us about our trip so far. Then, a couple of other hikers, whom we know -- Wild Hair and Dick Tracy, two middle aged guys who hike together along with a recent college grad, Buckeye -- come over to tell us that while the original trail angel connection has fallen through due to hiker overflow exceeding guest room capacity, there are plenty of others from the local Lions Club over in the parking lot by the hardware store (fundraising with a hotdog cookout or something of the sort--one of them brought us a tin foil wrap of about six extra weiners to help wash down our ice cream with, which we did, our Green-eating Koala Bear included) who are more than happy to host us for the night.

And here we are, seven of us, in the home of, once again, a superbly gracious and kind elderly couple bent on spoiling us rotten and fattenning our bellies. We went through six bottles of wine, a round of huge steaks, a wonderful, crisp salad with mango and cashews, all followed up with coffee and apple pie a la mode. It has been a hiker's wildest food fantasy come true.

I am the last one up here. I can hear all the others breathing heavily, sleeping soundly. The coffee at 10pm jacked me up for the night. Tomorrow, a full, uninterrupted zero day awaits. Post office closed until monday. Quaint mountain town to explore. Rest to be had.