Brad's Adventure

Days 21-24

Miles 266.1 – 314.3

We got a slow start the next day in big bear, we sprayed most of our clothes with some sort of anti-bug stuff because we heard the upcoming stretch had lots of ticks. While the clothes dried I was going to go down to the lobby and catch up with these posts because I was so far behind, but the computer was “in maintenance mode” or something. I see why Airbnb got so popular. I wonder if hostels will be the next big thing.

We checked out and took the bus back to the grocery store side of town for some last minute stuff we forgot to buy. Big Bear has free buses that run to different parts of town. By 2pm we had gotten a ride from a trail angel back to the trail and were ready to crush miles in our new shoes. We were able to squeeze out 12 miles and got a fun view of the town along the way.

The next day was a nothing burger. We were back in desert terrain and only two things happened. I saw the world’s largest pinecone, which made me feel like I am finally understand why so many guys post pictures of themselves holding fish.

The second event of the otherwise boring day involved rattlesnakes. Late afternoon I got a jump scare from a rattler laying on a rock. I was surprised that it didn’t rattle, or even turn around and acknowledge I was there at all, especially for how close I was. It wasn’t going to move so we climbed down off the trail to walk around it. Seth took a different route than me and I heard another rattle and Seth jumped backwards. There was another snake lurking in the bushes and it was pretty pissed off. Seth said it even hissed at him. We took an even longer route off trail and very slowly climbed back up the bank and continued on, slowly…. We camped by an actual river! Deep Creek. We camped on opposite sides of the river because that’s just funny.

The next morning I texted Seth from across the river to tell him I was packing up, because that’s also funny. Most of the conversation for the first 10 miles was Seth trying to convince me to stop at deep Creek hot springs, and me saying there’s no way I’m stopping for hot springs when it’s almost 90 and we’re in the desert. But once I saw the river, the paradigm had changed. Being hot springs in the middle of the Socal desert, this was of course a clothing optional area and there was a fair share of naked people. I swam around for a bit and tried a slack line that was set up over a swimming hole. I called it after 4-5 tries and my new record is three steps on a slackline. I didn’t get in the hot springs due to a blister I was worried about getting infected but I was still very glad Seth convinced me to stop. After the swim, I saw a hiker we’d met in Big Bear whose trail name is “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego” we just call her Carmen. She told us about the Joshua Inn, a dive bar(not an Inn) 6 trail miles ahead that would pick up hikers from the highway and let them camp behind the place for $5. After a swim a beer sounded too good to pass on. 

We got to the inn and the first cold beer was magical. We ordered sandwiches from the sandwich lady who was already pretty toasted and I was not sure how they’d turn out, but they were pretty good. We got up to play some pool after a few beers and sandwich lady, completely drunk at this point, invited herself to play with us. We played cutthroat and she hit in the 14, but then chose lows. I kinda got handed the win from that but to my credit I did hit a pretty sick behind-the-back shot. Apparently someone who didn’t get there till 730 ordered a sandwich and it came out more like a salad. We got a pitcher and hung out with some new hikers we met, we refer to them as the workaholics. They are pretty much really cool stoners. We made the mistake of coming here on a Friday so while the bar was fun, it was loud until 1am. Some local was screaming profanities… Overall a great day on trail though.