Yeah, I ended up skipping a trail section. I do feel a bit sorry about it, but that’s all I’m going to do with it at the moment.

In the morning I got out of the motel, and hitch hiked back from Big Bear City to Big Bear Lake. This time a hairdresser picked me up. She continued the trend of apologizing about Obama when she heard I am from Israel. At least she didn’t call him a communist, Muslim and heathen, as the motel owner did last night. Oh well. At the hostel I waited along with Idan, Pfifer and Monty for our ride up the trail. Pfifer did the trail at ‘11, so he gave us some good advice on the Sierras. Monty did it back in ‘77 and is now just sectioning for the weekend. We started the trail at about 10:15, and headed out towards the first water source at 10 miles. We made some short snack stops on the way, but got there at around 14:00 or so for our lunch.

Nice Tree/s
Nice Tree/s

I was rather bummed at first, thinking and re-thinking and over-thinking my hike, figuring out I’m not really having fun, and maybe I should stop. Then deciding I should give it some more days. Then deciding otherwise. I was a mess. I had a chat with Idan, and somehow afterwards things seemed clearer, and I even managed to enjoy the rest of the day. So I’m still here! I got my first taste of a tortilla with peanut butter and cheese. This is not going down easily. I need to get something else for my lunches. We said goodbye to Monty, who was still sitting there by the water, and headed out to our second half of the day. In about 3 miles we got to a trail Junction where the PCT takes a sharp right and many people miss it. We were ready for it. We also finally got to see some very nice postcard views of the lake, which were very nice.

View over Big Bear Lake, towards Snow Summit
View over Big Bear Lake, towards Snow Summit

We kept on trucking, trying to finish the day not too late. The last miles are the hardest, and I was starting to feel my feet with every step. Finally, we got to the campsite at about 18:30, and saw several other hikers around. The site is rather big so I don’t know how many are staying, or maybe some are heading out for night hiking.