Week 15: Big Bear to Idyllwild to Campo (Mexico!)

October 24

Leaving Big Bear, we sadly said goodbye to Sabine as she caught her bus to Los Angeles for her flight. I've really enjoyed hiking over 600 miles with her and feel like I'm saying goodbye to the older sister I never had - we were just so similar it was amazing. Hopefully we can visit her in London next year!

Next on our list was to meet up with Dan and Mascot (Florian) in Big Bear City. They'd been hiking together for about a week and it was nice to see them! It was sad we had to so quickly see Dan and timing didn't work out to hike with him that day, but at the same time I was looking forward to spending some time just with Vinny on the trail as we hadn't been just the two of us since before the Sierras, and it felt right to bookend the trail as a couple.

When Vinny's mom dropped us off at the trailhead, we hiked for a while until we met Nut-Butt, and then later in the day met up with Cockblock Moses and Larrybird. We stumbled upon a couch and took a nice rest enjoying some last "trail magic".

A few miles later we passed a private zoo right off the trail - apparently this is where they house the wild animals used in movies and television shows. We spotted two tigers and a giant grizzly bear. The whole affair was rather saddening, especially after seeing how small and sparse their enclosures were.

The private zoo - a tiger was in this cage, a grizzly bear in one the same size as well.

We camped at Coon Cabin that night as there was a water cache there - and an old mailbox filled with PopTarts for hikers. The boys all camped there as well. Coon Cabin itself was extremely creepy looking inside, so we decided to cowboy camp on the concrete deck of the cabin. There was a beautiful view of the city lights from Palm Desert down below, and we slept great on the nice flat surface looking up at the stars.

October 25

The next day, Dan caught up with us and we got to hike most of the day with him. We also ran into a bunch of other southbounders - the bubble is real! I counted when we stopped for lunch - 11 of us total. The biggest group I've seen on trail. The boys included Stitch, Nissan Pathfinder/Goon, Sharkbait, Mascot, Dan, Nut-Butt, Cockblock Moses, LarryBird, and us.

Today's trail was pretty nice, and we crossed Mission Creek a bunch of times. It was warm, but we were thankful for the abundant water in the desert.

We camped at the sandy shores of the Whitewater River with Dan. It's been a while since we've had a nice water source, and I was able to rinse my legs and wash my socks.

Since Dan is meeting his dad in Cabazon tomorrow, this was our final dinner party together. He'll have to slow his pace down for his dad and by the time he would be able to catch up, we will be finished. It was sad to know that this was goodbye, but we decided to make some fun plans for the finish.

October 26

We got up early the next day, and had some hard, rather pointless climbs out of the canyon to the highway. I had a frustrating morning, and the old feelings of being "too slow" started creeping in again. These feelings are made even worse by the fact that the trail is so close to being finished, and I feel guilty for having anything other than positive feelings towards it. Maybe I'm upset the trail is ending, maybe I'm just grumpy we have to say another goodbye so soon - this time to Dan.

Originally we weren't planning on going into Cabazon, even though the promise of In-N-Out and Starbucks was tempting, we needed to stay on pace to finish in time for Homecoming (shh!). However, when we got to the highway, Dan's ride was already there, the famous trail angel Hillbilly, and Cockblock was there as well. Plus, the heat of the day was just starting. All the signs were pointing towards cooling off with an In-N-Out pink lemonade. We agreed with Cockblock that we just wanted to quickly get burgers and then get back on the trail, and that convinced us to get in the car, knowing we wouldn't get caught in what we call the "town vortex".

We grabbed burgers and went back to Hillbilly's house, where he were met with three pups and the largest cat ever. He asked us if we wanted to participate in "Hiker Initiation", which was a shot of Everclear chased by a Keystone. Needless to say, we all passed on this and Hillbilly seemed disappointed we were not like the hard-partying Northbound crew. We have a trail to finish!

To get back to the trail, we took Hillbillys ATV on the back dirt roads along the highway. "You guys ever been on Toads Wild Ride? This is just like that!"

And it was. My knuckles were white gripping the bar and Vinny's thigh as I shut my eyes and just hoped it would be over soon. We were going really fast - 40-50 miles on the bumpy dirt road. I kept thinking this was the worst trail decision we've made, as I'm pretty sure that Hillbilly had decided to "initiate" himself when we declined, and I was really happy when we finally slowed down at the trailhead.

3 miles of hiking through sand later, we made it to the spigot before the San Jacinto climb, the last water for over 20 miles until we reached the top of the mountain. All of the other boys were napping in the shade of a nearby boulder avoiding the heat of the day, so we joined them. A few hours later, we decided we needed to get going if we were to get halfway up San Jacinto tonight. We ended up cowboy camping on the side of the mountain after night-hiking for about two hours - not very fun.

October 27

In the morning we finished the hard climb, enjoyed the icy stream at the top, and the easy descent into Idyllwild. The town was adorable and super friendly, two locals stopped us within 15 minutes of arriving offering rides and suggestions on where to eat. We ended up getting burgers and beers, and then headed over to the coffee shop to charge our phones and go through the food we needed to buy. Originally, we were going to hike on the same day, but the timing would work out that we would need to wait until 8am on Monday morning at Warner Springs for the post office to open, our next stop, which was only 40 miles away. It made sense to take it slow and camp in Idyllwild.

We camped with Cockblock and LarryBird and I got take out from the Italian restaurant because I was craving pasta and felt like I probably couldn't sit down in my dirty hiker clothes. I took a shower and washed my clothes in the sink at the campground - which would be my last act of hygiene before finishing.

October 28

A bake shop and brewery?! Best idea since the combination Pizza Hut/Tacobell!

In the morning we got breakfast at the bakery, which was amazingly delicious, charged our devices once more and then hitched to Paradise Valley. This is a common hitch that cuts off about 20 miles of trail that has been closed due to a fire a few years ago.

We only did about 15 miles today because we stopped at a water cache in the middle of the day for a nice long nap in the shade, avoiding the heat.

"Walden" was the name of this water cache.

Someone maintains a cute little library here.

The Anza-Borega desert is just stunning. Great varieties of cacti!

I also saw a tarantula and a couple of really cute cottontail bunnies!

October 29

Water cache at Mikes Place, a well known trail angel stop. Mike was not around, so we just filled our bottles and had lunch in the shade before hiking on.

The next day we hiked into Warner Springs doing about 25 miles. The gas station was open when we got there, and the guy working there was super nice. I got a yogurt, orange juice and a Sprite - just what I had been craving. Vinny got a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. We hung out at the gas station for a bit before heading down to the community center where we spent the night. There were a lot of bunnies running around here as well!

October 30

The gas station didn't open until 10am, so we waited for the post office to open and made our own pour-over coffee, which was a gift from the Idyllwild coffee shop's roaster. He was a hiker himself, was super friendly and excited to give us these cl… — The gas station didn't open until 10am, so we waited for the post office to open and made our own pour-over coffee, which was a gift from the Idyllwild coffee shop's roaster. He was a hiker himself, was super friendly and excited to give us these clever coffee contraptions. So much more delicious than our Starbucks Via packets!

In the morning we went back to the post office to wait for it to open. We sent ourselves a box of food here ahead of time for our final resupply - plus Vinny's mom had sent some boxes of goodies as well. Our friend Eric had also actually sent us about 50 pages of memes printed out which was incredible.

We ended up having so much food between the three boxes that we had to send a full box of snacks back home - it felt like a waste to just dump them and since we were out of season, there was no hiker box to donate to.

We left Warner Springs and ran into Nut-Butt again at a water source. We did a slightly shorter day and camped on an exposed ridge. It was very windy, but the view of the sky was incredible - the clouds swirled around the moon almost like a Van Gogh painting.

The desert here has been beautiful, but in a very sublime way. Photos don't do as good of a job capturing the beauty as they had in more dramatic landscapes such as the Sierras. However, I try to remember how the light shines through the cactus and the sky lights up with different colors.

October 31

We did 28 miles today, and had planned to camp shortly after a water tank where we could fill up our bottles for water for dinner. However, when we got to the water tank, the level of water was so low that the pipe was barely dripping out. The tank was essentially empty. There was a spring flowing about a mile off trail, but that would have added another two miles to our day. We decided to push on another 9 miles to camp at Sunrise Highway, where a horse camp slightly off-trail had a water spigot available. This was the first time our notes on available water sources had failed us, and I'm thankful I had some extra water in order to go the 9 more miles.

We were exhausted when we got to our camp as it is stressful hiking in the dark. We cowboy camped after making dinner again - we actually haven't set up our tent once since we left Big Bear - and woke up in a cloud of fog, with everything soaked. Our sleeping quilts had frost on them when we woke up. Since our Sawyer filters may have been compromised due to the freezing temperatures, we used our back up purifying drops on the water coming out of the horse through.

November 1

I had woken up on wrong side of the bed, not sure if I was just overwhelmed by trail ending or the stress of all the logistics getting back to real life. We still needed to figure out how we were getting from the border to Redondo Beach on Friday, and my post on the trail angels page was not getting much traction.

Walking to Mt Laguna, we enjoyed beautiful surroundings and a gorgeous sunrise. This area near San Diego is absolutely stunning, and I had no idea it existed! The general store at Mt Laguna was nice and everyone was really friendly - one gentleman was insistent he let us shower in his cabin, which we politely declined. We waited by the store while we charged up our phones and chatted with a few other people who asked if we were on the trail.

Mt Laguna must has a serious snowball problem. I saw about 5 of these signs posted...

Two hours later, we got back on trail - the rolling hills are much greener down here than anticipated and very pretty. We stopped by a cold and flowing creek to rest our legs in the afternoon before continuing the descent down Mt Laguna.

We stopped to cowboy camp near the highway and made our second to last trail dinner, 29 miles from the border.

It's crazy how most of our gear has hung on or just barely made it this far. Vinny's toe socks have more holes than fabric on them at this point, our ground sheet polycro is practically ripped to shreds (but somehow still working), my Thermarest Z-lite foam sleeping pad is pretty condensed, and my shoes will have a whopping 940 miles on them by the time we reach the border. They are pretty thread-bare, but the holes are just starting to appear. Not bad for making it through the Sierras.

November 2

We woke up and had a nice morning - rather somber as we realize the trail is ending. We've slowed our pace and tried to really soak in these final miles. We stopped for lunch at the Lake Morena store, which had the last water of the entire trail. We grabbed burgers and milkshakes, and met Laura, a super friendly local who jumped at the chance to give us a ride to San Diego tomorrow in her brand new car. Laura had moved to Lake Morena after getting off-trail earlier in the season, and the locals of the community welcomed her with open arms. It was so awesome to enjoy her passing along the kindness she received, and we exchanged info to get picked up at 10am the next morning at the Campo Green Store. Meeting Laura and arranging the rental car to Los Angeles (thanks Sarah!) really felt like a weight off of our shoulders.

Entering Lake Morena, the last town before Campo.

We continued on the trail after having several more great conversations with the locals. We decided to leave about 4 and a half miles to do in the morning before the monument and set up camp with Nutella, a 19-year old from Denmark. I'd seen his name before in log books, and it turns out he actually did a very similar itinerary as us, starting in Ashland before flipping back to finish up California going South. We had dinner together and talked about how strange it was that the trail was ending.

November 3

In the morning we woke up and started hiking before the sun came up. We got to enjoy one last beautiful sunrise before making it to the monument with Nutella. The last mile was interesting, border patrol was driving around in ATVs and several dirt roads cross-crossed the trail. However, soon we crested the little hill where the monument was, and just a bit further, the border wall. The morning light was beautiful and me and Vinny hugged, shed a tear or two, and took some photos. We read through the log book and then added our own entries. We spent about half an hour at the monument before walking back to the Campo Store along the dirt roads. It was a chilly, beautiful morning, and a perfect end to the trail. It was nice to have this moment to ourselves, especially as we were keeping the secret for just another 24 hours. It felt great to enjoy what the finish meant for us in our own personal way, before sharing it with our friends and family.

Just surreal. I'm incredibly thankful for this journey.