No bears came to visit last night though the amount of fresh bear scat suggested they were certainly in the neighborhood. Our little group of four slept in a little until the sun was shining brightly on our sleeping bags. A little after 8:00 a.m. we began the hiking day with Phantom still slowly moving forward with pain and Doodlebug feeling sick after a night without much sleep. The mosquitoes were not relentless, but nagging all night long, buzzing around our faces which were covered with head nets. The morning hike was pleasant, generally flat to down and nicely graded with some areas of shade and views across the Valley of the Angels National Forest. We stopped for lunch after climbing out of Bare Mountain Canyon at a shady gap near Pacifico Mountain Campground. Under the shaded Jeffrey pine tree we lunched and rested for about an hour and a half. A couple of day hikers and leaders from a local scout troop passed by while we ate. I was surprised that on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend in close proximity to Los Angeles we haven’t seen many people at all.
By 4:00 p.m. we reached Mill Creek Summit Ranger Station picnic area which had a parking lot, a bathroom with flush toilets and a faucet. The Canadians, Erica and Dominique, were napping on a bed of pine needles in the shade just behind the bathroom when Good To Go and I arrived. They awoke and joined us next to the bathroom, firing up their camp stove for an early dinner. While we rested our feet and bodies, Doodlebug arrived, then Phantom, and Charles and Evan too. Everyone cooked an early dinner. While we were cooking, a truck pulled into the parking lot with a dirt bike loaded in the back. The highlight of our meal time was the entertainment of having to listen as the rider revved the engine a hundred times and circled the lot, doing spin outs in the gravel and kicking up dirt everywhere. I was so annoyed I couldn’t wait to pack up to leave such a ridiculous scene!
I wanted to do another 6 – 8 miles as it was only 6:00 p.m., but Doodlebug talked me out of it, noting that she didn’t sleep and felt like crap. We settled for another 2.5 miles, mostly up, and found a campsite on top of an exposed ridge that was windy and hopefully would keep the bugs from pestering us. After some cell phone calls we had a small evening party with some adult beverages carried by Doodlebug and Good To Go, then crawled in our bags as the evening was quite chilly. We expect to make it to Agua Dulce sometime Monday afternoon.
Finally some late afternoon and evening clouds broke through on the horizon, a nice change from relentlessly clear skies day after day. This section of trail has been very pretty with lots of trees and, at times, forested areas with grassy slopes that remind us of the AT in New Jersey.
Today’s mileage: 16.5 Cumulative mileage: 421.2
