Pacific Crest Trail (Desert Section) - Leg 5 Wrightwood to Agua Dulce

Felt good even after just a nero here in Wrightwood. Good to rest as we were starting our biggest and highest climb of the desert section from here. Mount Baden Powell was another area that we were warned about the safety here. An experienced mountaineer/hiker died on it last year so we werent' sure what to expect and I still only had my hiking poles and Yak Trax. It was a steady climb up to over 9000ft. There was quite a bit of snow which made it a little hard to stay on trail. Free Range had a great GPS that she had programmed the topographical maps along with the PCT on it sowe knew exactly where we were all the time!! Good person to hike with! There were lots of day hikers on the mountain and so there was a well formed trail through the snow. There was also a guy just ahead of us with full crampons on making good steps for us. I could have put on my yak trax, but with my poles, I was fine. The part at the top that comes out to the ridge to is very steep, but with little snow still left on that exposed part we were fine. Again, a couple of weeks earlier I would have wanted my safety gear. We had lunch at the top of Mt. Baden Powell at a 1500 year old tree!! Very cool. At the end of the day we camped down at a picnic area back at that closed highway #2.



Highway #2 was to be a bit of a pain in my side for a couple of days. We kept going back and forth over it. Most normal people would have just hiked or driven down the road, but not the PCT hikers. I was happy to be done with crossing that highway many times. Apparantly, we also did some extra miles, by not avoiding a closed area to protect a yellow-legged frog. Bad for the frog and more tired on our legs:(. We were getting to be done for the day, but the ridge was very windy and cold so along another detour we hiked down a logging road for 5 miles to get lower and to the next water source. It was at a construction site for the new ranger station. We, legally or illegally, slept in the half-finished ranger station that night. We all got up earlier than normal in case workers were coming in early. We left just before 6 and one guy was heading in. He was friendly and we just got out of there.

It was a bit of a longer hiking day and the last 2-3 miles were very frustrating with the switchbacks again. We could see our KOA campground for that whole time, but took a bit to get there. Seems worse when you are really tired at the end of a long, hot day. I kept covered up most of the time with my fair skin and put on lots of sunscreen!! We got there after the KOA store was closed:(. Some who had got there earlier had leftover meals they had delivered there for I got Sunshine's spaghetti and meatballs:). There was a shower, but no soap, but it was good to rinse off. The bad thing is that once you are clean, it's really, really hard to put on your stiff, stinky, dirty clothes after that. We had an easy short day to get to Agua Dulce for a nero and then a full zero. Free Range wanted to push on, but I wouldn't. I wanted the rest.

Agua Ducle was amazing. We hiked by Vasquez Rocks which was beautiful coming into town. The people were all friendly to us. We first stopped at a cafe to get some lunch. A fellow offered to take our packs to where we were staying as he was volunteering there. There were bikes where we were to be staying so other hikers who had them took our groceries back for us as we had to hike another mile - then some guy offered us a ride anyways. Things were going well here and only got better.

The Saufley's are a couple that have hosted hikers for years and call it Hikerheaven. There is nowhere to stay in this town, let alone do laundry,etc. They have everything extremely organized. They had big tents with cots in them with a couple of RV's for couple's for some privacy. They have laundry bags and spare clothing so I spent the half day in a 70s purple tent dress, but it was cool, comfortable and something different to wear. They had an info board with so much stuff to read, supplied the new water report, had 3 computers for internet and had the post office stuff right at their place!!! As mentioned, they had many bikes to get to town as we did not walk to walk any more than we had to. There was a couple of horses and Sunshine got her first real hose ride so that was fun to watch. Their bathroom had scrub, clippers, body butter, etc and anything to fix up or bod in there. I was in there for a while. There was probably 40 of us there that night and not quite as many the next night. Lots of socializing!!

The next full zero day brought myself quite a surprise. It had been a month into my hike. I had met and talked with lots of people. As some of you know I had started seeing a fellow just prior to my trip which had mostly been going well, but had a little blip before I left. I had been happy to wait and see how things went after I got back. I saw that he had not only still been his online dating site, but changed his profile and pictures along with an email saying things that basically were pushing me away, not trying to get closer to me. I told him I'd just call him when I got back and give him the room to date others. I was quite sad and in my quiet time hiking, I realized that he was not in the headspace to make anything work between us so I had let him go in my mind while on the trail. After seeing that he hadn't responded to an email of mine, literally seconds after that, a fellow I hadn't seen in 2 weeks showed up and all I hear is "Hard Ass"!! I've been trying to catch you guys for 2 weeks, wanna do lunch?? Did we ever. Unfortunately, we weren't sure who he -Hikeaholic- liked, but both thought he was cute so spent the rest of the day hanging out amongst getting our stuff ready for starting to hike the next day. Free Range had previously dinner plans with a friend from LA so I had him to myself:)(see the guy to my right). We had yet another once-only catered dinner trail majic that night!! The next morning he asked up to breakfast as we were leaving. I took him up on it. I still wasn't sure if he just had fun hanging out with us or what so I still hiked that day while he had the day off.