Day 15, May 2: Mile 188 to 212
Start: Mile 187.8
End: Mile 211.6
Miles: 23.8
Ascent: 1194 | Descent: 8010
After a lovely windless night, I got up extra early and starting hiking at 4:40am with the goal of catching up to my friends. It wasn’t too cold and I was enjoying the net downhill. There had been some murmurings about Fuller Ridge being sketchy and needing microspikes for traction, so I had some shipped to me a week ago, but I ended up not needing them after all.
After a little climb, I started on the almost 20-mile, 7,000 foot descent. I soon came to the campground where my friends had camped, and even with half the hikers gone (I assume), the campground was still packed, so I think I made the right choice by camping alone.
My knee wasn’t hurting as much as the day before and I was loving the descent, so the day was progressing nicely. I listened to the acorn woodpeckers pecking and watched in wonder as the landscape shifted back from pines and snow patches to manzanita and scrub brush. I had a clear view of the 10 freeway below, the wind turbines, Morongo Casino, and alluvial fans coming down out of the mountains below Big Bear. The desert was approaching.
I continued hiking and came upon Power Plant sitting down on the trail, airing out his feet. He said the group started at 5:45am so I was hopeful that I wasn’t too far behind the rest of them.
As fate would have it, I soon caught up to Christina taking a break in the shade, waiting for Power Plant. She decided to keep going with me, and we hiked together for a while and chatted. We took a break and Cucumber, Mash and Half and Half were nearby. I shared some candy with Cucumber and Christina.
As Christina and I kept hiking, we ended up hiking and chatting with Amazon, who can primarily be described as marching to the beat of her own drum. She has hiked the AT and was wearing a cowboy hat, neon running shorts, and monkey printed gaiters that she had names and personalities for.
We finally reached the water tank at the bottom of the huge descent and our friends were there! I plopped down under Topo’s carefully constructed shade structure made of a Tyvek groundsheet. I was so grateful for the shade. Thanks Topo!
After a lazy and much needed extended siesta near the water tank, we finally got going again and made our way down a paved road towards the freeway. On our way down, we came upon our first trail magic of the day! Thomas and Jane from Palm Springs were set up at their car with a cooler full of ice cream cones, sports drinks and oranges. We were so grateful!
We thanked them and continued on, and found yet another trail magic- this time a unmanned cooler with a few goodies. I traded Cucumber a waterfall of Coke for some of my Pringles.
Powered on by trail magic, we crossed an awful sandy wash that was super windy sandy and hard to walk through. After trudging for an eternity, we arrived at the I-10 underpass in all its trail magic glory! There were gatorades, oranges, other goodies, cardboard signs to write your name, and lots and lots of shade, under which many hikers were taking respite.
Our group decided to Uber Eats order Panda Express and I picked a nearby random intersection to have it dropped off. The driver said we were not the first ones to do so there, which was pretty funny.
After a glorious tummy rumbling feast of deep fried, sugary sauce-covered carbs, we kept hiking on at sunset. After a small climb, we found an okay campsite in a wash. Alex, Power Plant, Christina and I decided To cowboy camp since it was sandy and our tents probably wouldn’t hold in the ground anyways. We chatted and joked around as we laid in our sleeping bags, looking up at the stars overhead.