Smiles at 7,200 feet after we climbed above the fog in the San Gabriels towards Mt. Baldy.
A fitting end to a long week and the first month of the hike! Last night when we fell asleep, we were cowboy camping under a clear starry sky in the desert at an elevation of 5,000 feet, which was 1,500 feet higher than the nearest valley floor. When we woke up today, it seemed like we had been transported to near sea level on the Pacific coast at Point Reyes, as a pea-soup thick layer of fog had descended on us in the night. We grumbled aggressively at the lousy conditions at our 5:30 am wakeup, adjusted our packs accordingly (it is poor form to stuff a wet sleeping bag, and ours were drenched with fog). Our first road crossing 1.5 miles in brought us to the first of many poodledog detours, so we took it. ,While hiking along the ridge road, we heard shrieks in the distance. It turned out that a rather hot and aggressive scorpion had crawled into Hot Mess' backpack, much to her alarm:
Once we hit 6,500 feet on the ridge, the fog momentarily broke, which revealed the fact that we were indeed on the top of a very steep ridge (recently afflicted by fire).
We stopped for a break to dry our down-containing gear, and were shortly joined by Sour Cream and Carrot, whom we had passed at camp one mile before we set ours on the previous night. We groused about poodledog bush and the steep road, then Sagitar, Spark and Track Meet showed up (in reverse order). We continued our climb through the chauss and scree mountains which transitioned from chaparral to conifers at around 7,000 feet. I found a dead tarantula on the side of the trail, turned it over,
put it on a rock, then built a cairn and placed it on top as my 'artistic' contribution to the trail. Some people scrawl in the sand, others build cones of pine cones; I build spider cairns.
Still holding fast to our goal of getting in town with time to send outgoing mail that afternoon, we entered town by way of the Acorn Trail, which drops 2,500 feet in 4 miles.
A view from the PCT looking down at Wrightwood, which the highway (the grey strip) runs through some 2,500 feet below.
The Acorn Trail itself dropped 1,500 feet in 2.1 miles, and didn't start its descent in earnest until .5 mile from the junction. It was a brutal knee- and foot-pounder, with plenty of off-camber and loose rocks to foul a tired, town-bound hiker up. After the trail, we descended a mile on steep, direct fire road with pointy rocks paved into the solidified mud base. After the fire road, we repeatedly rammed our feet into the fronts of our shoes for another mile. Finally, we made it. We lunched with Atlas, did our postage, and relaxed. Wrightwood was right for us at that time and that place.
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