Day 28 - Wrightwood to pct mile 386

That was a rather hard day.
It started easy enough, after we abated to get our lazy asses out of the hotel at 9:30. We managed to hitch a ride back to the trail along with Sochi.
The first few miles were easy and nice. We passed about three school groups who seemed to be very impressed to see "real" thru-hikers. We were happy to play the part.
Once we reached the second crossing of the highway we knew it's going to be all up from here. It was a 4 mile climb up Baden-Powell, and a climb of about 2800 feet. I counted 40 switch back all the way up.
I did fill up 1 liter of water at the spring on the way, which came in handy later, when I added Gatorade powder to it and drink it.
Up at the top (at 9400 feet) it was surprisingly not too windy and cold, so we had a quick lunch. The cream cheese bagel worked well today as well. From there we had mostly downwards trail, until we reached Little Jimmy spring. Idan went down the side trail to get each of us 2 liters of water.

Idan getting us water at the Little Jimmy spring

The plan was to push on 2 more miles to the road, where we'd camp, or hitch to some campground at the old (and much shorter) alternative to the closed trail. The new alternative adds 19 miles (a whole hiking day), so we wanted to skip it.
Then we decided we'd get in touch with a trail Angel in Wrightwood, so that we can catch a ride from the road back to town, and have pizza for dinner. A devious plan.
Luckily, we only chucked 1 liter each, of the 2 Idan just brought from the spring, and we headed out to the road.
Passing the Little Jimmy campground, it seemed like a very nice place, full of hikers stopping for the day. Going down to the road, we saw about 10 more weekend hikers heading there. I guess it's fun up there tonight.
We got to the road at 17:40,and failed catching a ride for over an hour and a half. There were almost no cars in any direction, and the few that did pass, just didn't pull over. We finally gave up and joined the three other hikers stopping here.
After dinner and crawling into my tent, it seems a group of school kids, or maybe scouts, have stopped here for a break. They don't seem to be trying to be extra quiet, to let us poor hikers sleep. I hope they split soon.

Day 27 - campsite at pct mile 357 to Wrightwood

Ah. Easy days into towns are nice.

I think Cajon Pass is hiding under all those clouds

We started rather early for us, being on the trail at 7:15. Pilgrim was already gone when we woke up anyway.
The trail kept going up and up, until we finally reached Guffy Campsite high up at 8,200 feet. We later heard from people who camped there they had rain and crazy wind overnight. We were just a bit chilly in our spot, but nothing more.

Just a nice hollow log

I went down to get some water, so I can camel up before heading out. The spring is quite a hike down the slope. And it trickles slowly. I was happy I only had to fill up one liter. And then was the climb back up. Bummer.

Water reservoir for snow making

From there, the trail didn't climb as much. Which is always nice. We passes along two water reservoirs, which they probably use in the winter to make snow for the slopes, and we saw some ski lifts and grassy ski slopes.
Right before reaching the highway we passed All Day Long, on his was into town as well. The road seemed deserted, but the second car that passed us pocked us up, and got us to the Mountain Hardware store.
I picked up the packages I ordered from Zappos - a new pair of shoes and new toe socks. I'm wearing the socks now. It definitely needs getting used to. We also bumped ahead our resupply boxes to Agua Dulce, where we will have a blast figuring what needs to be sent where, on the Sierras.

A new shoe and a new sock

At the supermarket we bought some tomatoes, avocado, cucumber and assorted salad mix to have for lunch. That was very nice. I also drank a can of microwavable Campbell tomato soup. Yum.
For dinner we went out with a bunch of other hikers to the Green Cafe, or something like that. While they didn't have anything specific vegetarian, I ended up getting a veggie patty on my burger. Same taste as always. But it was filling.