Day 23
Mile 347 to Wrightwood (mile 369 then a 5 mile hitch)
Cost: On the floor in a cabin with the gang, payment in beers

Today’s mission was to get to mile 369 (22 miles away), then hitch 5 miles into a town called Wrightwood and buy food to get me through to Acton, 75 miles away. I needed to arrive in time to go to the post office (before 5pm) as I had bounced my bounce box here from Idyllwild, and I also needed time to buy food from the grocery.

I left before 6am and spent the next few hours climbing up to 8000 feet. It was a lovely cool morning in the mist and I was able to get quite a few miles in before the sun started to break through the clouds. I ran into DJ and Paparazzi but no-one else.

Paparazzi and DJ

A tarantula (dead), one if the reasons I’m not so keen on night hiking!

Wearing my mouseworks beanie

Under or over?

    I arrived at the road crossing to Wrightwood just before 3pm and waited for about 10 minutes on the side of the road for a car to pass. There were no cars passing in either direction. I walked a little up the road and around the bend before returning to my original spot, deciding it was the safest place for a car to pull in on the windy road.

When I got back to my original spot I noticed a car in the car park on the opposite side of the road. Cool Breeze got out so I went over to say hi. The man who’d given Cool Breeze a lift was called Rum Monkey – he’d done part of the trail already and was back to continue tomorrow. We chatted for a while and then Cuban B emerged from the trail and came over to chat. We managed to convince Cool Breeze to come back to Wrightwood for the night and we all jumped into Rum Monkey’s car to be driven into the town of Wrightwood – thanks Rum Monkey!

We were dropped off at the Post Office which was next to the hardware store (where the trail register and hiker boxes were) and this was next to the supermarket – a perfect compact hiker town! I went to the hardware store to check the hiker boxes as I needed some food to get me through to my next resupply box and I was also running out of gas for my stove. I managed to pick up two mashed potato dinners and a half empty gas canister. I signed the trail register and walked to the supermarket next door to buy breakfasts, lunches and snacks for the next 4 days. I left with granola bars, a block of cheese, salami, ritz crackers, almonds, pretzels and dried fruit sticks.

As I was leaving the supermarket I noticed they had rotisserie chickens near the entrance so I went back in and bought a roast chicken and a 6 pack of Lagunitas beer.

Cuban B, Cool Breeze and I walked over to the cabin that Rowan, Roxanne, Puff Puff, PT & Lucky had been sharing and we were invited to sleep on the floor like one big happy family 🙂

I showered, put my clothes in the laundry then shared the rotisserie chicken and beers with Cool Breeze. It was the best meal I’ve had so far on the trail!!

It was the 5th May and Cuban B had been insisting for the previous week that we needed to have margaritas on the 5th May (not that I needed an excuse considering I’m on a margarita tour of the PCT), so all 8 of us plus Marathon John headed over to a nearby Mexican restaurant.

It happened to be 5 cent margarita night (with any combo meal) so we were in luck! I had a huge dinner and a couple of margaritas then we walked back to the cabin and I slept on my mattress on the floor.