Day 17 - mile 191 to Ziggy and The Bear

That was one cold night up there on the mountain. I had all my clothes on, which meant I had only a pair of boxers and a pair of socks to use as a pillow. It wasn’t that bad, except for my feet, which were a bit chilly. In the morning we waited for the sun to come up over the ridge, and start warming us. Idan had a leak from his water bladder, and he got some of his gear wet, which bummed him a bit. But we took our time, and he got it all dry by the time we left. The trail was a long waterless stretch for 15 miles of hiking down around 2000 feet. It quickly got down below the snow level, and it was just an annoying downhill slog for a long long while. It was just 4.5 miles as the crow flies, but we had to go the long way around. It really strange, the way we started in the cold snow, and quickly got down to the hot hot desert floor. We quickly started to miss the chilly weather. I didn’t miss the wet feet, though. We were fantasizing about reaching the spigot and resting there under some shady trees until the heat broke, before we head out to the last miserable 5 miles of hiking along the sandy desert floor. When we finally got there we were sad to discover there is almost no shade in there, but we managed to cram ourselves under a big rock for about an hour of rest.

We headed out at just before 15:45, and it took us about 2 hours to finally reach Ziggy and The Bear. This is an awesome place - the house was bought to serve as a PCT hostel. They give you an Epsom salt foot bath before you can use the solar shower (by the time I got there it was icy cold), and they accept hiker packages, and also sell many hiker oriented supplies. They also served ice cream. I got vanilla.

There are a lot of hikers staying here at the moment. But we found a good secluded spot to lay our mattresses.