day 17, May 10th shortly before 2N02 to Big Bear City

We've made it to BBC and have had a delicious breakfast at Thelma's. At the Fire Department we took a shower (!!), we left our packs there (great service), again sent some little stuff home respectively forwarded somethig to Kennedy Meadows and right now we sit in a laundromat.

It was kind of hard to get some quaters to get the machine running as we didn't have any, the change machine was out of order and nobody except the guy at the gas station was willing to change. But now everything is working. Alina is off in her pretty skirt wearing her hair openly after today's shower as I sit in my rain gear in front of the washing machine. Our plan today is to resupply after we washed and dryed our clothes and hit the trail later on. I hope that we
will hit the trail around 3 or 4 p.m.  ¶ 09:38 0 comments

  day 16, May 9th 2 miles after Creek Side Camp to
2 miles before dirt road 2N02 - 22.9 mils

This is something new! So far Alina was in charge of writing the english journal and Sauerkraut (that means I) had to write the german stuff. Things have changed as Alina is cutting the tipps of her hair to keep spliss at bay :-)

So what happened today? I shaved my 5 day old beard off to look a little bit more handsome and we did a 20-miler again to make sure we don't have to walk too long to Highway 18 tomorrow. We need to resupply in Big Bear City and want to have a decent pancake breakfast before we do shopping.
It was pleasant hiking today. First we climbed slowly on the side of a mountain with breathtaking views of San Gorgonio to our right, then we descended into a valley on our way towards Highway 18. The whole section was well graded and most of the hiking was done in the shade of huge beautiful pine trees. Along the way we ran into Giddy-Up and later on into Old Corpus. When Hikers meet they always exchange information and opinions which is really interesting.

"Did you run into other hikers?""What do you think about the upcoming miles?""Do you hitch into town or hike into it later?"

There are always questions to be discussed and even if not you can always talk about off-trail stuff with a hiker...

We are really looking forward to see Big Bear City as we enjoyed Idyllwild a lot and we hope that we will like it.

That's all for today

Happy trails

Sauerkraut  ¶ 09:36 0 comments

  Der verflixte 16.Tag Verflixt nochmal!

Nein, es lief heute mal wieder super-rund und man brauch sich gar keine Sorgen um uns zu machen.

Gestern waren wir ein Tal hochgestiegen und haben kurz vor dem Grat oder amerikanisch der Ridge auf einer kleinen nicht abschuessigen Flaeche direkt am Trail geschlafen. Natuerlich ohne Zelt, was wir in letzter Zeit eigentlich nur noch machen, weil es einfach toll ist.

Heute morgen sind wir dann bei 4 Grad Aussentemperatur ohne Windchill aufgestanden und ja...der Wind war ordentlich. An einer Bergflanke entlang mit tollem Ausblick auf den Mount San Gorgonio sind wir dann irgendwann viel spaeter in ein anderes Tal hinunter. Wir laufen morgen erst mal nur wenige Meilen bis zum Highway 18, um nach Big Bear City zu trampen. Wir haben kein Happa-Happa mehr und muessen fuer die naechsten 6 Tage einkaufen.
Einkaufstage sind besonders, weil sie einem ganz anderen Rhytmus folgen. Es gibt sauviel zu erledigen und zwischendrin muss man ja noch Burger, Pancakes und andere Leckereien in sich hinein gestopft haben. Was wir zu erledigen haben? Einkaufen, unsere komplette Waesche waschen, duschen gehen und natuerlich Internetsachen machen. Moechte man noch am selben Tag wieder auf den Trail gehen, dann ist man ordentlich am roedeln.

Unser Trail-Alltag sieht dagegen recht locker aus ;-) Wir stehen um 5 Uhr auf, essen was, laufen gegen 6 Uhr los, essen was, laufen weiter, essen was, laufen weiter, essen was, laufen weiter und auf einmal sind wir gegen 18 Uhr an unserem neuen Lagerplatz :-)
Zwischendrin unterhalten wir uns auch mit anderen Hikern, spuelen unsere verschwitzten Klamotten in Baechen aus und fotografieren ein bisschen. Insgesamt haben wir auf und nebem dem Trail immer ganz schoen Programm. Es ist schon interessant, was man leisten kann, wenn man motiviert ist bzw. wenn die Entlohnung angemessen ist. Und wir koennen Euch nur raten den PCT in Zukunft mal zu laufen (ganz oder in Teilen), man wird hier jeden Tag mit Natur pur und toller Landschaft belohnt.

Bis bald
Carsten und Alina  ¶ 09:35 0 comments

  day 15 - Whitewater Canyon and Creek to 2 miles after Creek Side Camp, 18,4 miles Uphill day

After rinsing some shirts and socks aside the Whitewater Creek which has a wide river bed and after fording the first time bare footed the uphill trail began.

By the way so far we can keep stinking at bay, we also use some wet wipes which do the job.

Our trail today offered little shade but lots of water. We crossed many times the Mission Creek so we basically filled up what we needed.

The climb started at 2285 ft and now we camp at 7100 ft but the highest elevation is for tomorrow. We have enough water to reach the next place with water, so we made camp at 6 p.m. and now we are writing today's journal obviously, checking our resupply plan and munching something inbetween. It is windy and it gets chilly pretty fast right now but the sleeping bags are great! I am so happy about mine because I tend to sleep cold but I have not been cold.

Oh, we had another snake encounter. It rattled very loudly in a bush next to the trail. I managed to jump around without an heart attack...But I missed a beat for sure.  ¶ 09:34 0 comments

  day 14 - Falls Canyon and One Horse Ridge Overlook to Whitewater Canyon close to Whitewater Creek, 22,7 miles Hot animal day

Right before we started the sun rose like in one of those holiday brochures. After watching it we continued yesterday's descent on seemingly endless switchbacks on difficult trail. It was sort of overgrown and narrow and stoney which meant that we hardly saw where we stepped. The sun shun hotly from very early on (7a.m.) and we looked forward to reaching the bottom where there is a faucet. Our treated water had for me a strange aftertaste so I didn't really want to drink it although it was hot.

And then it happened. At the head of one switchback on an elevated flat rock there was a rattler. We both heard and saw it simultaneaously. I, as I was walking first, was so afraid of it that I wanted to be far away from it so I jumped onto a rock...only to be warned by another rattler at the bottom of that rock. Freaked out I jumped and ran towards Carsten, pretty much shaking.(I was afraid that the snake would charge if I passed it in the direction of the trail). Looking back the situation might seem funny but for me it sure wasn't! Carsten banged all the rocks as we cut the switchback and I was jumpy for a long while after.

At the faucet we had an early lunch and a lazy break because the sun shun so hotly. Later Giddy-up showed up and told us who had taken a ride around Fuller Ridge and who else had obviously lost much time over it.Popsicle has got Shint Splints so he will say in Idyllwild until he's better. Giddy-up then told us that the first snake we had seen before the rattlers had been a Gofer snake, not dangerous, and he described a Racer snake to us, not dangerous, too, which we saw shortly after. So I have had my quota of snakes, that's enough!!

We then continued through the flat desert past Snow Canyon village on sandy trail where the wind blew so strong that we had to pack our umbrelas away.

There are railway tracks and two freight trains passed us. I counted the wagons of the second one: 80!

We kept hiking up again over the Narrow Pass leaving the Mesa Windmill Farm back and entering again breathtaking landscape. And there we saw a coyote!

Now we are close to the creek on an excellent campsite. As we arrived here all we did first was dump the packs, take the shoes off and lay o the sleeping pads because the feet hurt so much.

It is 8 p.m. time to go to bed, the sun has set anyway. Carsten is already asleep :-) Good night  ¶ 09:33 0 comments

  day 13 - Saddle Junction to Falls Canyon and One Horse Overlook, 17 miles Fuller Ridge- or postholing day

Last night the ascent on the Devil's Slide was so easy and went by in no time. Probably because we were talking all the way up or because we had just had an enormous pizza. I did not have any idea what 16'' really meant. We had the rest for breakfast and some for lunch...Next time a 10'' will do.

At Saddle Junction we met Puff-Puff, Snappy and Prodeal (Ryan) coming back from an attempt to cross the snow.

So this morning we started hiking and looking at the map very closely (like every bend and switchback)and we made it.

The whole hike today was in the sign of snow if I can put it like this. Even long before Fuller Ridge there were snowfields to cross respectively the trail was to be found. It was not always obvious where to go.

While hiking up the snow two hiking poles failed, one of Carsten's and one of mine. Both were damged in the same place between the first segments. We managed to keep them usable but we have to find another solution.

Fuller Ridge was not as exposed or as steep as I had imagined but it was so very tyring to cross it. We constantly postholed! Without poles we would have had a much harder time.

While descending the switchbacks to where we are now I first notied deer tracks and then actually saw one on the opposite side of the valley! This was another highlight.

As almost every night our feet are discussion subject number one, old blisters, new blisters, how dirty, etc. Today they look better because the shoes are soaked from the snow.  ¶ 09:32 0 comments

  Tag 12 Was fuer ein fauler Tag!Angefangen hat er mit einem dicken Fruehstueck und er hoert auf mit Tee, Nuesschen und Rosinen...warm eingepackt auf einer schneefreien Flaeche im Schlafsack. Wir sind auf 8100 ft und haben morgen ein beruechtigtes Sahnestueckchen auf dem Programm ->Fuller Ridge. Das schoene daran ist, das wir kurz vor unserem Camp Hiker getroffen haben, die 2 Stunden vergeblich versucht haben den Weg zu finden. Hier oben liegt Schnee und der Trail ist oft nicht zu sehen. Aber jetzt zurueck zum Faulsein. Alina meint gerade wir waeren fleissig gewesen, was wahrscheinlich auch stimmt. Nach dem gemeinsamen Fruehstueck mit anderen Hikern, haben wir geduscht, unsere Waesche gewaschen, waren im Internet, waren Pizza essen, haben fuer 5 Tage Lebensmittel eingekauft und sind den Devils Slide zum PCT hochgelaufen...das kann nicht jeder von sich behaupten. Das war unser 12. Tag in den USA in Kuerze.  ¶ 09:31 0 comments

  day 4 - 1 Mile after Lucky 5 Cache to Scissors Crossing, 19,8 miles After a cold, stormy and rainy night we set off half an hour later than usual and crossed hills after hills
with small bushes. Had only had Poptarts for breakfast (won't happen again, Poptarts I mean) and were soon
after that hungry again- it doesn't surprise me as they are all empty calories.

We traversed more hills where the wind tried to blow us off. At a concrete water tank we met Popsicle and
since it was break-time anyway we stayed there. Ate all our tortillas (wholewheat ones) .

After that break we continue along more hills and for quite a time don't lose height. Then we are in the
desert at last, it's sandy and hot and the vegetation is as I had imagined it to be. For a long time we walk a
straight line. After a little longer we arrive at the cache next to the highway where we just sit and cook.

As I write this today May 9th, I can tell that we wanted to try to hitchhike back to Lake Morena for the Kick
Off. Eventually we got a ride but to the wrong crossing as we learned later on. As we waited for another ride
back to Julian a painter picked us up who originally wanted to drop us at another junction. But as it was very
foggy he missed it (he did not know the area) and ended up in takeing us all the way to Lake Morena. So we
contributed to his gasmoney and he was happy, too.

We arrived sometime before 8p.m. I think. Carsten was pretty sure to remember our campsite # so we pitched the
tarp at 62 and then went to register with the ADZ organizers. They told us we belong to 63 so we had to move
quite a bit since the numbers were not next to each other. It should pay off to have moved.

All we could do that night was to say hi to go-BIG and his parents and to take a shower. I eventually washed
my hair, too. SO NICE!  ¶ 09:30 0 comments