Day 21 Shake, Rattle, Let’s Roll

Day 21 May 8

Start mile 266.1

Camp mile 285.6 Little Bear Springs

Today’s miles 19.5

We were jolted awake at 4:50 am this morning by a magnitude 4.5 earthquake which occurred about 20 miles south of us. It only lasted a few seconds. There was a quick jolt and a rattle, somewhat like going too fast over a speed bump in a parking lot (or hitting a Winnipeg pothole). It was a small reminder of what part of the country we are in, close to the San Andreas fault which we will cross soon.

After that bit of excitement it was back to sleep for a couple more hours.

We were up just before 7 and got ourselves packed up while another hiker named Two Pack made Brenna and I some pancakes.

Soon, we were being loaded into the Big Bear Hostel’s sweet automobile for a ride back to the trailhead.

We got off the trail on Friday May 4th and it is now May 8th so we better get moving or we will never make it back to Canada, let’s roll.

The only clouds in the sky today seem to be contrails from airplanes.

Today is warm, about 75f / 24c and there is no wind. The forest here isn’t thick so about 70% of the trail is in full sun, 25% is in filtered sun and about 5% under the biggest trees is in full shade. A 10 mile per hour breeze sure would have done a lot to make it a little more comfortable. Oh well, it is much better than in the open desert where the scrub brush is only 3 ft tall and shade is hard to find.

 

 

Hard to find shade in the burn areas!

We stopped for lunch and to filter a bunch of water as we are headed into a bit of a dry stretch for the rest of today until about midday tomorrow. We rationed the water a little bit so that we would have enough to make supper and each have a liter for tomorrow morning. There might be water a couple miles into tomorrow mornings hike but guaranteed water about 7 miles or 2.5 hours into the hike.

We have decided to cowboy camp again tonight because the skies are clear and there’s no wind. We climbed into our sleeping bags and watched some bats fly around as it got dark. There’s some birds chirping and an owl off in the distance hooting.

Mike and Brenna, hoping a pine cone doesn’t fall out of the tree above us as we sleep tonight.

Thanks for reading