Day 17 mile 266 – Day 3 to Big Bear

Song of the post – “Sweet Virginia” by The Rolling Stones (A surprisingly wonderful California hiking song)

Last night was cold and windy. We were lucky to find a wind protected area just below the ridge line, setting up camp around 8500 ft. We slept with our Sawyer filter and our water containers to keep them from freezing.

Sunny, crisp morning to begin hiking. 20 miles to Big Bear.

It is a good day of hiking. The terrain is more rolling hills today, not that ”horrible never ending” climbing of the last two days. I guess this is called the high desert, lot’s of pine forests and sage meadows.

And WILD DONKEYS!! (or Burros, I don’t know the difference)

Why are there wild donkeys in Big Bear? Well, there’s a couple local explanations. One is that they shot movies up here in the 50s, westerns. And then after completion of filming, the donkeys were just left here to survive on their own. This sounds kind of brutal.

Another explanation is that during gold mining in the San Bernardino Mountains , many of the prospector’s donkeys would runoff and go wild, and these donkeys out here now are later generations of those wild donkeys.

Another milestone hit.

This was a big day for us besides making it to Big Bear. Cliff and I both now have our trail names. Cliff has been pretty noncommittal about excepting his name, however, over the last couple of days he started to introduce himself as ”WaterBoy”. Why?, you ask. Well, many of our water sources are little short forks off the main trail, and Cliff being the quicker hiker gets to these forks first. So, he always goes for our water. Hence Waterboy. That’s not the only reason, but you can ask him.

Today, I met the nicest trail angel who gave me a ride (Jacqueline). She asked me what my trail name was and I told her I didn’t have one yet, but I was eager to be labeled. She gave me a look over and said “What about Orange Crush?”. I was wearing my orange jacket, and my beard is blonde and red, looking kind of orangey. I thought about it a moment and said “why not?”.

And we made it to Big Bear. A good day overall.