Day 27: (05/14): to 347.2 :: 17.7 miles

Thursday 5/14

We cruise up and over and down little hills until we reach the final descent into civilization, with sweeping views of the Cajon Pass valley. We see the busy interstate 15 freeway and highway 138 winding into the mountains. We also see a busy train track and have been hearing the trains since last night. I have probably ridden in a car through Cajon Pass dozens of times in my life, but never experienced it like this, from a wilderness perspective and probably not in spring either. All of the surrounding slopes are covered in wildflowers giving the hills a neon green and yellow hue. To my delight, this color does not come predominantly from invasive mustard plants like I had always thought when viewing the hillsides of Southern California from a car. Many native plants, especially deer weed are responsible for the color! Adding to the beauty, we can see across the highway to the San Gabriel mountains, and the snowy Mt Baldy. We stop for a snack and to admire the view, then continue down to McDonald’s, making it more than 12 miles by 2 pm.

We’ve been looking forward to McDonald’s for days and I’ve been thinking about it for weeks, reading articles about all the things that vegans can order. There will probably never be another time in my life that I yearn dearly for McDonald’s. Over the past few days I’ve had countless hours to reflect upon my history with McDonald’s. We ate there a lot when I was a kid, thanks to the lure of happy meals and their toys. My mom enabled us in our toy collecting, especially when there were barbies or beany babies! We often had a stock pile of happy meals in the freezer because we’d buy so many at a time, often visiting multiple locations in one day, for the sole purpose of toy collecting!! For many years following my young childhood years I did not frequent McDonald’s, as I became interested in health starting in 8th grade. At this time I quit soda and chips forever! McDonald’s was brought back into my life in 2011, my first summer in Alaska bus driving. Another driver and I, Josette, became good friends, nearly inseparable, and we began the bad habit of frequenting McDonald’s for McFlurries and French fries!! I indulged often that summer at McDonald’s and many other locations that involved French fries, and I gained a significant amount of weight. That summer is probably the last time I’ve had McDonald’s! 

I was not vegan at the time, but have since learned that not even the fries at McDonald’s are safe, and they are seasoned with beef and fried in oil that meat, like nuggets, are fried in! McDonald’s won’t officially certify anything as vegan, but many menu items have animal free ingredients. I was especially looking forward to having a salad and was surprised when looking at their menu that they sounded surprisingly good on paper. Unfortunately, visits to Cajon Pass McDonald’s this hiking season no longer hold the lure that they once did, thanks to CoronaVirus. Gone are the days of sitting inside of the air conditioned oasis, charging devices, using running water and flush toilets. Instead we stand behind the plexiglas wall at the register with our masks on, our order being taken by a masked young lady. I quickly learn that they’ve pared down their  menu at this time and are no longer doing salads. Oatmeal with fruit was another option I had been surprised to learn about, but they recently cut breakfast back to no later than 10:30, so that is out too! I attempt to order a “veggie burger,” even though McDonald’s doesn’t have one in the US, so I ask for a bun with lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion, mustard and ketchup. We also order apple pie, because those are surprisingly made of animal free ingredients, and a large iced tea. 

The whole inside is roped off with caution tape, so you can’t enter the seating area. Since you can’t sit inside right now, we sit under a pine tree at the edge of the parking lot where people from the highway take their dogs to be relieved. It is really windy and the view is dominated by the highway. We are surprised to see so many cars on the road, things are definitely picking back up from where they were a few weeks ago, when everywhere was a ghost town. The pie is good, tasting like an apple fritter, but the sandwich is really gross, but we of course eat it anyway. The request for pickles or onions didn’t get through for some reason and we end up with none, so we are left with a meager pile of shredded lettuce and two tomatoes each. For some puzzling reason, one of the tomatoes was separate in a condiment cup. Needless to say, the experience at McDonald’s does not end up being what I had dreamed it would be. I want a do over! 

McDonald’s also sells mandarin oranges and packaged apple slices, which I thought about ordering, but we found 3 mandarin oranges at the trailhead and hoped to find whole apples or bananas at our next stop, the Chevron gas station. Sadly there is no fruit to be had at the gas station. After careful inspection I am able to choose a couple of items to complete our “town” meal. They are mostly all foods I would not eat under normal circumstances, but they are the healthiest foods in the store! We get naked juice smoothies, which are entirely fruit juice sweetened, but somehow manage to contain 50+ grams of sugar per bottle! We also get some rice cake like chips with added veggies and some dried crispy apple chips. The apple chips are the only thing that I might eat on a normal day in my life, but given the choice, I’d rather just have a fresh apple! I had hoped to get a dark chocolate bar, but there was not a single dark chocolate in the store, only milk chocolate. I am surprised by the lack of health snacks, but I guess I have never tried to buy anything healthy in a gas station! The seating outside the gas station is far more pleasant than at McDonald’s. We sit on a cement pad next to a picnic table and a nice patch of grass. The building blocks the wind and most of the freeway view and noise.

I had intended to be totally out of food when we arrived here and buy food at the gas station for the final day and a half to Wrightwood. This leg is the first one in which we have had any leftover food at the end. We have hiked much faster than expected while also eating less than expected. We basically got here a day early and had enough food left to get us to Wrightwood and I am so glad, because just about the only other thing in there that I would have eaten was trail mix and Clif bars! I’m sure one day it will come to that, but thankfully not yet. 

Leaving Cajon Junction, we walk back to where we left the trail and continued through a tunnel under the freeway. Once on the other side we pass through an old rest area that is now abandoned and full of burned out old cars, building foundations, old wires, the remnants of a commercial kitchen and a fabulous cactus garden that has run wild! I had a nice time admiring and photoing all the cactus, which were blooming. There was even a fig tree with fruit, but it wasn’t ripe yet. I have made a mental note to go back one day when the figs are ripe and eat them!

The trail up from the freeway feels like a no mans land, not quite wilderness, but definitely not civilization either. We wonder what agencies are responsible for taking care of these in between zones. We guess that it is part of the San Bernardino National Forest but must be seldom used, except for PCT hikers. We have passed through many such zones, walking under freeways and near towns or through remote neighborhoods. It’s not all wilderness, but it has been neat seeing the transitions from wilderness to development. We imagine that each year will see more and more development and less and less of a wilderness feel. 

We pass under the railroad tracks within the first few miles and stop for a rest break at an overlook and bench above the tracks. We knew it was a busy track since we’ve been hearing the trains since yesterday and seeing them go by ever since Cajon Pass came into view earlier today. We wait for a train and it’s not long before we hear one coming. I decide to count the cars, but get a little more than I’d bargained for! 300 cars with 6 engines evenly spaced, 2 in the front, 2 in the middle and 2 in the back. Impressive!

We hike on for a few more hours along a ridge above the freeway through densely carpeted slopes of wildflowers in predominantly in shades purple and yellow. We watched the haze and smog take over. In front of us we see Mt Baldy and it’s surrounding towering peaks, below we see the busy Cajon Pass and way down in the valley below we can just barley make out San Bernardino through the pollution. We recently learned that San Bernardino consistently has some of the worst air quality in the nation! This makes sense as every time we’ve driven through in the past we’ve looked out the windows of the car in disgust and amazement that you can hardly see the mountains from down there! It is a shame but it’s a city located on the edge of the Los Angeles megalopolis and at the base of the mountains, so all of the pollution from the big city gets trapped there.

We camp about 5 miles from the freeway and nearly 18 miles from where we started the day. We camp near a water cache that is maintained by some nice volunteers from Wrightwood. We are on a 22 mile waterless stretch, and although we could have carried all of the water if we’d had to, it is nice that we don’t have to, as each liter weighs about 2 pounds and we would have needed to carry well over 10 liters from Cajon Junction if not for the cache. The cache is located one valley over from the Cajon Pass area, so we are sheltered from the railroad and highway noise. We are camped along Lone Pine Canyon Road, a dirt road, and part of a back way into Wrightwood, so we hear off road motorcycles and a few cars go by. We enjoyed a warm evening, a beautiful sunset and more luxury food. We finished the last of our produce with dinner, the other half of the Siamese cucumber and a jicama. I can’t think of a better raw vegetable that can stand up to the abuse of a week in a backpack than a jicama! I also acquired some coconut chips at the gas station, so we have coconut “bacon,” cucumber and hummus tacos. Mmmm.....

Cajon Pass area, interstate 15 down in the valley and San Gabriel Mountains across the valley 

Beautiful walk down

Panorama of the area

A multi car train in the distance 

A new snack to try, about 400 calories a bar!

Yellow deer weed

Approaching the freeway

Trailhead and an official sign for McDonald’s

The road to McDonald’s

A sad veggie burger 

Gas station food 

Under the freeway 

Old monument at the old rest area

Cactus heaven 

Beautiful cactus flowers 







This cactus has really neat long paddles

Old cars, Jaguars we think 



Tunnel under the railroad 

Waiting for the train at a nice overlook with a bench 

View of the tracks and the cool rock formations

View of the train 

Hazy sunset on the ridge with wild flowers and a look into the valley on the left where we camped.

Looking back to I-15 from the ridge 

A fine campsite