PCT catch-up blog part 4

After dropping off Toots and Tears on the trail, I drove to Banning, where I holed up in a Holiday Inn Express. I ended up staying two nights, getting over some kind of strange head cold. Finally on the third day, I felt well enough to venture back to the trail.

Next up was Big Bear. There is Big Bear City and the city of Big Bear Lake, and both are hiker resupply points and a few miles off the trail. Which meant there were plenty of hikers that were going to need rides. I met many, many hikers the week in Big Bear, and met up with many more that I'd met at Lake Morena or kickoff.

The first night in Big Bear I slept in my car in the parking lot of Nature's Inn. The second night I was over at the hostel in Big Bear Lake, and I ran into Mr. Green from Minnesota. I hadn't seen him since kickoff, and he and some other hikers were pooling together to stay at a cabin.  For fifty dollars I got a bed, laundry, and a steak dinner prepared my Mr. Green himself, including his steak sauce made with half a bottle of Jack and a jar of honey.

I met Manchurian, Dishcloth, and Awesome that night, and Whispers was there as well - I hadn't seen him since Mt. Laguna. We stayed up late, teaching Manchurian and Dishcloth how to play cribbage, and listening to what Mr. Green called "babymaking music" from the likes of Barry White and Marvin Gaye.

The next morning I went out to Onyx Summit and brought a bunch of hiker goodies out to the trail. Beer, soda, chips, and cupcakes. Also chairs! I offered rides but everyone decided to hike through to the next road crossing at highway 18, so I got to stay there all day and meet thirty great people. In the early afternoon, Toots and Tears came through and took a break with me. They planned to stop four miles short of highway 18, but they breezed through the next section and called at about 5:30 to tell me they were going to be ready to go to town that night.

I started scrambling to get everything back down the hill so I could go meet my girls. There were five hikers on the hill with me including G-Dub and (I think) Sensei. They all offered to help me get everything down and I nearly had a Tears for Beers moment. In one trip we got everything down the hill and I was so grateful to the hikers for helping me that I nearly cried.

I picked up the girls at highway 18 and we spent the night at Nature's Inn - the hotel of a thousand stuffed animals and the high-powered nipple-removing shower...