Week 2: Mission Creek, CA to Bear Springs, CA

Week 2 Mileage: 248.2

Swingin’ D**ks and Saggin’ T**s

Starting week 2, the Mission Creek section should’ve been a cruiser past Big Bear, it wasn’t. It was washed out for 15 miles from a storm last year. Walking a river bed and crisscrossing small streams and rivers made the 30 mile day go on forever.

I left Alec the Mormon the next morning. The pace was too much. Alone again, I starting pushing hard and two days later and averaging 35.5 miles per day, I arrived at Deep Creek Hot Springs. Just my luck it was a Saturday and the nudists were in full affect. Up to that point I’d seen enough snakes on the trail and didn’t need to deal with that so I pushed on another 2 miles and cowboy camped on a ledge.

The following day, I crossed Cajun Pass then crushed McDonald’s, resupplied, and stayed over night. The next day, a huge uphill past Wrightwood, and a visit from my buddy Fish who is a Great Western Looper. He gave me some Intel on the Sierra and we hung out for a bit. Got going around 7:15 and made it to the base of Mt. Baden Powell by 9 pm.

Woke up excited the next morning for the climb( my 4th time). Ignoring all the rookie fear mongering about needing micro spikes and ice axes, I took off. Not before opening the privy on a dude doing his morning constitutional.

I made it through the snowpack and summitted in 1 hour and 45 mins. Some sketchy stuff but nothing crazy. Just a lot of down followed by a lot of up. Roughly 9,000 feet of elevation gain that day.

I needed to resupply at the  KOA campground in Acton, CA the next day.  I realized, while I was in my tent that night, that the campground store closed at 7 pm and I was 38 miles away. Not wanting to wait until they opened the next morning I left camp at 4:45 am and made the 38 miles by 5:30 pm. A ton of hikers there looking like zombies. After eating frozen processed garbage and resupplying, I left and did another 5 miles out, closing my first 40+ at 42.5 miles.

The next morning, I cruised through Agua Dulce, and proceeded to do the long, hot exposed uphill to Bear Springs to close out my week just shy of 250 miles.