Smiles headed out of the saddle at Inspiration Point with Mt. Baden Powell in the background.
The tables turned today, with Smiles faring better overall than I when all was said and done. I fell asleep watching war movies on TNT at the semi run-down/hiker Pines motel (i.e., there was no plug for the bedside lamp. Just bare wires.) in Wrightwood following a hearty Mexican food dinner with Team Tingo. When I woke up at 6 AM today, Law & Order was on TV. There goes the early departure. We dragged our checkout until the last permissible time - 11 AM- and pow-wowed with Tingo while we mustered the ambition to hitch a ride to the summit and resume the trek. We weren't hitching but 5 minutes until a nice lady in a new-looking WRX pulled a u-turn to pick us up. When we loaded our bags in her trunk, we saw a 49ers license plate frame. We were in good company.
A rolling, 5-mile descent led us from the saddle at inspiration point to the Mt. Baden Powell trailhead. We took a quick lunch to try and work through the obscene amount of food we both had, but I nearly had to force myself to eat. Strike 1. I also warmed up the hot spots I had going on before Wrightwood, which poorly affected my gait.
Smiles standing between a couple very, very old pines near the top of Mt. Baden Powell.
The climb up Baden Powell was the best part of the day. The trail was beautiful and well-graded, if a little crowded. The mountain resembled a moonscape of piled, gray scree with cedar, pine and fir trees hundreds of years old poking through the steep talus slopes.
A gnarled limber pine (Pinus flexilis)upwards of 2,000 years old near the Mt. Baden-Powell summit
We summited and departed the final 6 miles to camp, when the indigestion generated by the Mexican food the night before kicked into high gear and started a firey case of chafe. To make matters worse, the descent off the summit reminded me that I did indeed need larger shoes, with my toes cramming into the end of the shoe with each awkward, chafe- and blister-influenced step. It really was beautiful on the high ridges of the San Gabriel mountains. The cities and suburbia of the greater LA area were invisible beneath a blanket of smog, which allowed a brief suspension of disbelief that we were not adjacent to one of the large population centers of the USA. gnarled limber pines along the ridges told tales of hostile conditions as we kept dropping down (the proper name for the formations being krummholtz).
Dr. Slosh with the high San Gabriels in the background.
We got into camp at our normal time (dusk) and touched base with Rocky, t-Rex, carrot, sour cream and chik-chak before making camp. I discovered that I wandered off from Arrastre trail camp on the southeast side of Big Bear without my tent stakes, but we were able to pitch freestanding. More gear to buy. After a hot ramen dinner, we quasi bear proofed camp by shoving our OP sacks in cast iron and stone camp ovens, journaled, and hit the hay.
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