Thunder Thighs

I Well, I'm at mile 275 for the night, I spent last night at a hostel in big bear lake. The days leading up to going into town were rough. I'm not going to start from where my last blog left off because I'm losing track of the days to be honest. Everything is a mile number now, not a day of the week. 

I took a zero in iddylwild and coming out of there was brutal. 13 miles basically straight up and we got too around 8900 feet! The next day was straight down, except not really. It was 15 miles of switchbacks and trail that was extremely overgrown. It was frustratingly slow to go down, even though I went quickly, you could see the road we were trying to get too all day which drove me crazy. When we finally got to the bottom, around noon we sat around for about 2 hours in a tiny bit of shade. I had been hiking with two guys, Michael and Chewey. We finally mustered up the effort and got on with the last 5 miles of our day into a trail Angels place called Ziggy and the Bears.Those 5 miles were brutal, extremely hot with zero shade cover and we hauled ass. I ended up getting a little dizzy towards the end, but we luckily got to an interstate overpass and there was trail magic. Soda, beer, and fruit! Ziggy and the Bears was pretty nice, they carpeted the entire backyard for hikers and there was places for us to chill, do laundry, shower and just recharge. Just as we were about to go to sleep a camel spider crawled over Gavin's face. That blew any chance of us having a good nights sleep. The next day I headed out alone around 9 and it was already 85 degrees. I had a terrible day hiking. I felt like I couldn't breathe and I was gaining in elevation. The hills looked relatively level but it kept climbing and climbing. I didn't realize till a day later that I was taking way too much ibuprofen which was thining my blood plus going up to 8600 feet or so. I did 18 miles that day, but it took me forever. The next day I took the same amount of ibuprofen and had just as terrible of a time but only did 10 miles. A guy named Tucker caught up with me and helped me realize it was ok to only do a few miles if that's what you're feeling. I was feeling guilty for only doing 10, but after talking about it and seeing who I would get to hang out with it made it worth it. I camped that night with Chewey, Tucker, Emma and George, Gavin, and Jake. Gavin and Jake came in late around 8pm. They told us when they left Ziggy and the Bears the day before there was 3 guys shooting guns parallel to the trail, even when they asked them to cease fire while they walked through they kept shooting. Gavin tried called 911 but the connection was terrible. Apparently a little while later a sherif came by and arrested the guys luckily no one was hit. The next day I didn't take any ibuprofen and felt 1000000 times better. I actually led the group most of the day. I stopped for lunch at a water cache and about a mile after that there was a giant dumpster painted with the words magic on it and a couch. Chewey, Tucker, and George had already taken their seats and I cracked a cold soda.

I had been talking about and craving a soda all day. We all had a massive sugar high after that and basically ran the last 3 miles into camp. The next day I got up and didn't stop walking until I got to the road into big bear lake. I got picked up by Bently and he took me to the hostel. I had never stayed in a hostel before but it was nice. Atleast for hikers, I could never see my mother staying in one, but it was perfect for us and the owner "Sarge" as we called him was super chill. We all hung around and resupplied and had a few beers. That brings us up to today. We got up and got a ride from Gavin back to the PCT. Hes done hiking now, he was just doing a section as I mentioned earlier. It was an easy but boring 9 miles to camp today. My pack weighs a ton because I have 6 days of food till my next town. I'll have to start averaging some 20 miles days this week. I also upped the amount of food I'm eating, I got to weigh myself at the hostel and am already back down to around 200lbs. I started the hike at around 218. So now it's two dinners everynight and a lot more snacks during the day. If you haven't realized from the title I have gotten my trail name. I'm now known as Thunder Thighs. Thanks for reading!