Day 28 – Hwy 2 to Little Jimmy camp – 15 miles


Leaving town is always tough, and today was no exception. There seemed to be a million little things left to do and we’re never inclined to get up at the crack of dawn when we’re sleeping inside. Nonetheless, we got going eventually and headed up the road towards the trailhead with our thumbs out. We hadn’t been walking for more than a few minutes when someone saw us, pulled a u-turn, and offered us a ride. Heather was just finishing her volunteer shift at the school and decided to help us out with a lift. She told us that the people in town love to see us start showing up in the spring. All of the towns we’ve visited so far are very hiker-friendly, but Wrightwood seemed especially so.


Up at the trailhead we bumped into Mr. Green, the Minnesotan we last saw outside of Idyllwild. He was heading into town and tried to get us to stay an extra day. It was really tempting to talk MN restaurants with him (he tends bar at Rudolph’s in Uptown) but the trail was calling. We might catch up with him again in Agua Dulce since many hikers take multiple days off there.


We had an easy 5 miles to start off with – gentle ups and downs over good pine duff. A sign helpfully reminded us just how far we have left to go to Canada. This was all a prelude to the day’s big climb up Mt. Baden-Powell, named for the founder of the Boy Scouts. The trail switchbacked up 2500 feet over 4 miles but was very well-graded and lovingly maintained by the scouts. What would have been a hard climb a month ago was (almost) a nice stroll, even with full packs. We took the short spur trail to the summit, signed the register, and enjoyed the views. The air was hazy, maybe from fires, so we couldn’t see as far as we had hoped.


After summitting we headed for the Little Jimmy camp, our destination for the night. Along the way we were passed by Lightning Rod (whom we had met on the summit) and Thirsty Boots, who had hiked the three long scenic trails multiple times along with a whole bunch of shorter ones. The two of them hike a very similar pace to ours, so even though we were about 100 yards behind them we didn’t catch them until the spring before camp. The last 6 miles was rougher than our first few but thankfully there was no sign of the wind that nearly blew us off the mountain before town.


Once at camp, we ran into Matt and Jamie and their dogs, as well as Stefan and Angela whom they have been hiking with (and who we refer to as “ze Germans”). We were all in town together but kept pretty much to ourselves. Tomorrow we will come across the all-but-permanent endangered species detour put in place to protect the Arroyo Toad. Even though it only skips a few miles of trail, the official detour is 20 miles of hiking on rough trail. We and the other folks here will take the old detour, which is much shorter but had a dicey 3-mile road walk. We were glad to hear that we wouldn’t be the only ones risking traffic!


– Posted from the PCT

Location:Pct mile 384

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