April and Jeff Hike North America

In the morning we take the hotel shuttle to Los Angeles International airport, AKA LAX. We are about 3 miles away, but from the time we get into the shuttle to the time we are at our gate, it’s 15 minutes!! There is no traffic on the road, no one else at the check in counter and no one but TSA workers at security. Once inside the terminal there are just a few people, but the cleaning crew outnumber the actual travelers. We take a look at the screens that show the flights for the day, less than one screen is needed because the flights are so few! Normally it would take at least 15 minutes just to drive the couple miles there with all the traffic. Wow! Crazy! We were curious how hotel breakfast would work. The entrance to the breakfast room was blocked with a table and taped to the table was a menu. Inside the room a masked employee would fetch you what you asked for from the menu and put in on a tray.  You then take the tray to your room and eat it there.  Empty corridor at LAX...

Today is the day for getting picked up. We are excited and try to race down the trail, only we have little energy from lack of food and don’t make it anywhere fast! Luckily the walking is mostly level with not too much up or down and are backpacks are light in the absence of food.  We hike on the desert side of the ridge and are surprised to see Joshua Trees in the same views as snowy mountains and ski runs. Big Bear is a popular resort town that has a few ski areas nearby and many people come from all over Southern California to visit. It’s not just a winter destination though, there are lakes in the area that attract summer time visitors. I have not spent much time here. I think I have only been once, for my sisters wedding a few years ago. Her husband’s family has a house here, so they have spent a lot of time here, and that is why we chose it as a meeting place. We had planned for just Shannon and Zak to come, but my mom and sister May wanted to come too, so they are driving up...

We make the ridge line early in the day and enter the pine forest. We finally get another good look at the snowy mountains. We can’t tell which one is the highest peak or if we can even see the highest one, but it is certainly pretty. We get into some higher elevation, around 8,500 feet and enter the snow again in the dark shadowy sides of the ridge. The trail reminds us of Fuller Ridge on San Jacinto, only this time more snow is melted off and we can see more of the trail, but it still slows us down. Luckily it only lasts a couple hours, and we rejoice when we reach dry ground. We can’t imagine what it must have been like for the hikers that came through weeks ahead of us. We are glad we are not them! To get out of the snow the trail moves over the ridge to the sunny side of the mountain we are traversing and we get views down into the Mission Creek drainage. We can see into the oak forest we walked through last night and can actually spot the trail of 8 miles ago. The trail sure tak...

We hike many miles up the Mission Creek drainage today. Last year in February there was historic rain fall and flash flooding and much of the trail was washed out. Lots of debris was washed down the creek and we are expecting to have a really hard time and assume we will have to walk up the creek in the actual water, based on comments from other hikers in the Guthook. We are pleasantly surprised that all that is needed is to take our time and look carefully and we find  the pieces of trail that remain. The going is slow and it’s hot again. We walk with our umbrellas and take advantage of being near the water all day by dunking our heads and shirts frequently and manage to stay cool.  In the evening we leave the drainage and enter a shady oak forest. The trail begins climbing more steeply at this point and we are tired. Even though we’ve hiked all day it hasn’t been easy and we don’t make it as far as we planned. We stop for the night about a mile short of the ridge we were pl...

We walk through the Mesa Wind Farm in the morning, but it is not windy and none of the windmills are going. It gets hot early and we wish we had gotten a pre dawn start, but we never seem to get up early, especially when we hike late, like we did last night. We feel like we’d die of heat hiking up over the initial foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. On the way up we spot a tiny desert tortoise!! How neat! It is only about fist size, so we assume it must be a baby! I’ve always wanted to see one! From over on San Jacinto, these mountains looked rather dry and barren, but they’re not, there are lots of wildflowers! We see some new ones that we have yet to see. It’s really neat seeing different plants come and go.  We are heading for the Whitewater River and it is a welcome relief when we reach it. This is yet another neat place close to home that I never knew about. From above the river looks like a glacially carved valley in Patagonia. It reminds us of our hiking around Aconca...