Day 26, May 13: Mile 364 to 369 and into Wrightwood
Start: Mile 364.4
End: Mile 369.3
Miles: 4.9
Ascent: 470 | Descent: 1329
I didn’t set an alarm today, which was a lovely change of pace from our usual 4am wake up call. I slept in until 5am and was able to wake up slow and stay in my tent until 6. I woke up in a great mood, enjoying the relaxed morning and not having to pack up in the freezing dark morning. The fact that there were pit toilets at the campground was an added bonus.
We hiked out an easy 5 miles and passed Mountain High ski resort, where I learned to snowboard as a kid and would go often growing up. It was surreal and cool to see the signs for the runs and the lifts in the warm snowless landscape. Though, we had a view of Baden Powell in the distance with some snow on the face of it.
The three of us made it to the Angeles Crest Highway at the Inspiration Point trailhead and waited in the parking lot with a few other hikers. After a few minutes, my friend Chris arrived to pick us up and take us into Wrightwood.
We went into town, dropped another hiker at the post office, and went to breakfast at the the Evergreen Cafe. I got a delicious eggs benedict and Amazon and I split a Caesar salad. After breakfast, we went to the post office and I got one of my packages which had a few odds and ends. We also stopped by the gear store next door, which didn’t have the water reservoir I was looking for, but they did give us a sweet PCT pin if we signed their register.
Chris shuttled us back to his beautiful cabin so we could inventory our food bags, shower, do laundry, and settle in. After a couple hours, he dropped us off back in town to do our grocery resupply. This Jensen’s Market was particularly welcoming to hikers with “PCT hikers welcome!” signs all over and everyone was so nice. They had many items catered towards hikers, and I got a little overly excited at the bevy of options and bought too much, again. Oh well!
Next we went to an açaí bowl shop near by and I got one with granola, raspberries, mango, hemp hearts and honey. Soo delicious!
At this point, we were ready to go back to Chris’ so he graciously picked us back up. We relaxed some more at his house and organized our food while we watched the rest of Finding Nemo. It was such a luxury to watch a movie on a tv!
Yet again, we went back to town a little later (luckily Chris lives relatively close to the town center), and we got a somewhat mediocre dinner at a dive bar type place. I got spicy chicken wings and a salad and it was meh, but the people were nice. After dinner, we went back to Chris’ and drank some beer while listening to music before hitting the hay.