top of page

Day 94 – hiking, fires, detours

PCT day 7 I walked 20 miles enjoyable miles through the San Gorgonio wilderness. A series of canyons and ridges that look straight out of a western movie with tumbleweeds and all. I walked up through this terrain to whitewater preserve and then explored the river that is much more the size of a creek. I then walked back all the miles I had walked to catch a shuttle to San Bernadino only to continue to Big Bear via bus and be in position to keep hiking tomorrow. The trip and detour through San Bernadino was quite a shock. After over 3 months of the trail life and then going through a very poor city and section of town I was a little out of my element. The five year California drought has wreaked havoc on the trail. In 2011 there were no fire detours. There was also a record snowpack and not a drought. This year I am working through my second major detour just past mile 200. The official route is set to miss most of 30 trail miles by taking a bus as there really is no feasible option according to the PCTA. In order to combat this skip along with avoiding a $2500 fine of trying to walk through the closed section I did a 20 mile out and back up towards the closure to walk enough miles and then tomorrow I will back track from the town I had to take the bus to where the closure starts on this other side. In short I will hike more miles than the trail and also be able to complete nearly all of the open trail (most of it twice with out and backs). I cannot wait to hop back on the continuous trail tomorrow

Miles 210 – 251

bottom of page