Wrightwood to Agua Dulce

DAY 27 | To Tentsite Mile 379.5

Enjoyed the morning at Joan's house. There was freshly brewed coffee, granola and fresh fruit ready for me. I added some bagels I had left over from the day before.

As windshields in the mountain hardware store were sold out and my MYOG shield made out of aluminium paper was screwed already, I built a new one.

After a very relaxing morning, I finally left the house to get a hitch up to Inspiration Point. Took only 10 minutes until I was picked up.

Walking was quite easy, maybe because of the temperature, maybe because my feet were relaxed. I soon reached Mt. Baden Powell which was a very steep ascent for almost 4.5 miles.

I reached the intersection of the summit around 6.30 pm and decided to walk up after speaking to a Mexican guy who said it’s just a mile and that he would go up too. Beautiful view over the mountains in the twilight.

After coming down, I walked another 2 miles until I saw a campsite with 2 tents and decided to pitch my tent there too.
 

DAY 28 | To Cooper Canyon Camp (Mile 395.2)

Met Shiloh at the tent site in the morning. Filled water at Little Jimmy Spring.

A lot of day hikers and scout groups for Memorial Day weekend.

Detour around frog closure via Highway 2 and Burkhard Trail (approx 5km). It involved road walking on the highway, a lot of motorbike and car racing. After reaching the campground, I headed up Burkhard trail until meeting the PCT again and climbed a steep bit up to Cooper Canyon Campground.

Day 29
To mile 415
19.9 Miles

Poison Ivy?

Got up at 5 am and was on trail with Shiloh at 6 am. Quickly grabbed my bagel but had no time for coffee. Sun was crawling up the mountain while we climbed the first small hill after leaving the campground.

Shortly after we crossed the 400-mile mark and after roughly 5 miles we reached Camp Glennwood where we had planned to get water.

The camp is basically a small house that can be used by Boy Scouts. Some hikers including Uturn, Hawthorn and Snowman had camped there and apparently, there was some trail magic the night before with beer and hotdogs provided by Brad who spent time at the house to do some repairs that day. It was his birthday and we had a nice chat. The camp/house formerly was a school for the children of the workers who once built the closeby highway 2.  

Due to our early start today, by 11.30 am when we stopped for a lunch break we had already done 10 miles. Nice!

Early afternoon we heard and saw a rattlesnake below a big rock. Apparently, it was disturbed by another hiker that sat on top.

As we continued my ankle suddenly started to hurt. Took a quick break but then continued to the campground for another 5 miles together with Siloh. This was the furthest I could go today as my foot urgently needed a rest. Not sure how I managed but maybe the fact that we were walking through a beautiful canyon helped. To my surprise when arriving at the tent site, we still had almost done 20 miles.

Lipstick joined a bit later and we all prepared our dinners together.

The tent site is located on a ridge with beautiful views but it might get windy there tonight. Just had to re-adjust the tent lines and put some heavier stones on top of the stakes while I was writing this. Very cosy though inside as the sun had already heated it up from outside.

And I finally got my trail name today: Rainbow (related to my tarptent rainbow).

Day 30
To North Fork Ranger Station (Mile 436)
21 Miles

Woke up at night and had to go for a pee. Once I had stepped outside I saw in the distance down the hill the lights of a bigger city (Pasadena?). We were actually not so far away from civilisation as I thought.

Short walk to next stop at Mill Creek Fire Station to fill up water.

Met Freya from Hamburg and again Hawkeye, Seabiscuit and Lipstick. Had to take quite a bit of water as the next water would be in roughly 29 miles.

A lot of sun all day and barely any clouds! Luckily after a first steep ascent, we walked through a stretch of wood which provided quite good shade.

Day 31
To Acton KOA (Mile 444.3)
8 Miles

Started hiking at 7.15. It became very warm very early but my feet felt quite good and by 7.30 am I had arrived at the Acton KOA campground.

Maybe the urge for a shower and laundry had pushed me. That morning I did not even want to put on my shirt so smelly was it. Fortunately, I found my third pair of socks that I had not worn so far.

Immediately had a soda.

Figured out that I had shopped my box to the Acton post office instead of the campground.

After taking a shower and laundry, I tried to hitch to the town of Acton (about 4 miles from the CG) which worked quite well as one car had just given a ride to another hiker but had to go back to town.
 

Day 32
To Agua Dulce/Hiker Heaven

Started hiking at 5:45 to avoid the heat for the 10 miles to Agua Dulce. The first 4 to 5 miles were ascending and luckily that was during the first 2 hours when the sun was not so intense yet although it was almost needless to put my puffy on in the morning as I had to take it off after 20 minutes of hiking already. Time was passing fast and all in all, it was less exhausting than I had expected. Walked through a really nice canyon with giant strangely formed rocks after crossing the Highway 14 tunnel. Thought that if I had hiked at night it would have been cool to camp under one of those giant rocks.

Walk into Agua Dulce was quite easy and once I reached "downtown" (which basically consists of 2 restaurants and a supermarket, at least that is what it seemed), I immediately saw familiar faces at the breakfast place. Met again Yoda and Warren who I had not seen for a few days and Hawkeye who had started hiking out of Acton KOA around the same time as myself.