Day 22: Zero day in Big Bear

There's a classic debate on trail: stay in Big Bear City or Big Bear Lake? Big Bear City is technically closer to the trail--5 miles as opposed to 9. But most folks stay in Big Bear Lake: it has a main drag--called the Village--with plenty of restaurants. And the post office is right there at one end. Meaning everything in Big Bear Lake is walkable.

Hmm, walkable.

Today the main chore was resupply: needed to get to a grocery store and buy tortillas and bars and tuna-in-a-bag--the usual accoutrements of thru-hiking cuisine. Well, there *is* a grocery store in town--a Vons--only it's *not* in the Village, but instead about 2.5 miles away.

Hmm, walkable.

Most people get there either by finding a ride or by taking the bus. I recommend either method. What I do *not* recommend is what I did:

I walked.

I remember back in Julian, on a zero day, standing in front of 2-Foot Advenures (the gear shop up there) with Dean and the Four Horsemen waiting for a ride from Rayangel back down to the trail, when Columbia had exclaimed: I'm done with walking on this zero day! A fair sentiment: zero days are for resting, and walking around town--even if with a largely empty pack--is not resting. Especially if it takes over an hour to walk there. And then you have to walk back! Don't do what I did!

But I did arrange for multiple stops on the way. Dropped by the Big 5 to see if they had any gear I could upgrade (they didn't), stopped by a Walgreens to pick up some odds and sods, finally got to the Vons and got my resupply shopping in. (To be fair, at one point on my long walk down Big Bear Boulevard, a random truck had pulled over in front of me. Do you want a ride?, the guy asked. Ack, my next stop was in like two blocks so, a bit embarrassed, I said, thanks, but no, I'm just going round the corner. Ok, he said, and drove off.) With my resupply shopping done, I proceeded to head across the street to pick up lunch at Mountain Munchies (good sandwiches) and then headed over to Uno and Dylan's place just up the road. I had pinged Uno when I got into Big Bear, and it turns out they were in town, had gotten a place near the Vons rather than out by the Village. So some coordination later, I dropped by.

Since I was going to someone's place, and since I'm Asian, I also stopped by the donut shop next to Mountain Munchies to pick up some donuts as a gift. What would you like, the girl behind the counter asked. I dunno, I said--I haven't been in a donut shop since grad school, and even then it was a Krispy Kreme--umm, what's your most popular donut? Caked or (something other type that I don't remember), she asked. Umm, I said. So she pointed to a few choices and I said, yes, exactly, what you said, and picked up three donuts. As she rung me up, she asked, are you a hiker?, probably noticing my big backpack (or, more likely, my scruffy appearance). Yes, I replied. Oh cool, she said, and promptly gave me an extra bag with some extra donuts and some donut holes, on the house. So when I finally showed up to Uno and Dylan's place, I had two bags with the equivalent of about 5 donuts with me.

Come on in, they said, we're just finishing lunch. Their place had a kitchen, so they had had a real lunch. (And evidently lunch had followed right after breakfast, so they'd be eating for a while now--very thru-hiker.) Well, when I finished my sandwich and offered up the donuts, they were pretty full. So I ended up eating the vast majority of the donuts myself. If that isn't proof of hiker-hunger kicking in, well, then I don't know what is!

But I spent the afternoon catching up with them. Uno's dad had reserved this place ahead of time, so they had gotten off trail at the 250-mile mark (as opposed to the standard 266-mile mark of Highway 18 that I had used), had gotten a ride into town by this quirky couple who had also insisted on showing them their home--which had *so* *many* American flags--and commenting on how so-and-so used to live there and so-and-so now lives here and on and on, and had finally gotten them into town yesterday, same as me. They were taking a zero too, resupplying, and planning to head out tomorrow. We jawed away the afternoon, lots of hiker talk. We joked about how small a town Big Bear was: that was part of its charm. (They had found a radio station that seemed to play whatever style of music it pleased, but seemed to have only a single advertisement, from a local eatery that was looking to hire some help, that played every half hour or so.) We talked about the trail. (They asked if I'd seen any animals in the Zoo--a private zoo the PCT passes right next to--and I had said, no, it's closed down. No, it's open, Uno replied, and pointed to an article in the local paper. Ack, so I missed the lions and tigers and bears?) We talked about pooping in the woods. (This is an inevitable subject amongst thru-hikers, but one whose details I'll omit here.) We talked about photography and music and other trails they'd done in the past. (They certainly had a much more storied resume than me: the AT, the TA, the Colorado Trail, Patagonia, slowly the list revealed itself. I will say that one thing about the PCT is that a lot of folks have a lot more experience than me. With some folks, I find that difference creates a gap where I'm on the outside. But with other folks like Dylan and Uno, it doesn't, but rather it's almost more endearing than distancing. Not sure why.) Just a pleasant afternoon whiled away shooting the breeze, across a table full of food.

Eventually, though, I had to head back, took my leave, and started walking back. Which was actually a bit faster since now I had a dinner appointment back in the Village. Mark--Friend of Pokey--had pinged me. He had just gotten into town himself and was (not surprisingly) hungry and looking to get dinner. He was staying in the Village, in a hotel across the street from the post office. (He had asked his daughter to book him a place "as close to the post office as possible", and the only closer she could have gotten him would have been renting a PO box!) We went out to the Himalayan Restaurant--Mark hadn't been yet, and the reviews were good--and then more thru-hiker talk. Mark had had a tough time going over San Jacinto too, especially at the Rock Slide. Mark's an older guy--properly retired--and when he had come to the Rock Slide, he had stood there for 15 minutes trying to figure out if he could get past it or would have to turn back and instead take the alternate route. The Rock Slide has two tricky parts: the Downward Step at the beginning where you have to trust the rope, then the Shelf where you have to pull yourself up to a ledge at about chest height. He didn't think he could get up the Shelf with the added weight of his backpack, so was trying to figure out how he could separately get his backpack across. Maybe stuff it through one of the small crawl spaces between the boulders of the Rock Slide? But then would he be able to get it on the other side? And how would he know except to *get* on the other side? He was starting to despair when who should come up but Ru and Taheil (two girls I had met back at Stagecoach--very friendly, although Taheil had been feeling poorly at the time). They conferred with him, then Ru (I think) who's a rock climber scrambled across and they checked that, yeah, Mark's idea of putting his backpack through the boulder-spaces would work, and then they helped him: he unpacked his bag and would throw stuff through, and they would pull them through on the other side with his ice axe. Now unencumbered he had just to cross the Rock Slide himself, and for that he watched, eagle-eyed, as they crossed, then replicated their moves exactly, especially the step up the Shelf: put foot there, swing knee there, pull self up like so. And he got across! And he was so grateful to them: if he ever saw them again, he said, he'd get their contact info and they'd be receiving Christmas cards for the rest of their lives!

And that was the day! There was more, of course, lots of conversations when I got back to the hostel, for example. There's a tradeoff on zero days: spend the day getting stuff done like chores and planning, or spend the day hanging out talking to people. Because while on trail bubbles tend to spread out--people hike at different speeds, camp at different sites--in town they re-coalsce and suddenly all these people you haven't seen for a while are around. In theory, I should strike some sort of balance, but in practice I find myself getting the minimal number of chores done and then talking to folks. Eh, I try to justify to myself, I'm on "hiker time", that relaxed sense where, sure things need to get done, but there's no need to schedule and optimize everything to peak efficiency. There's just no joy to be found there. Rather, just sitting in the TV room for a half an hour doing nothing but vaguely talking to passersby, waiting for my turn on the washer/dryer--this is a perfectly valid use of the day. And in that spirit too, sure, there's more to say, but eh, maybe it'll come up later in reminisce.

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Some notes:

-- Way back at the I-10, right before the Wind Farm, I had been passed by Colin, hiking fast through the desert. He had heard that you could take a dip at the Whitewater River, so was pushing to get there as soon as possible. Later, when I saw him at Whitewater--after he had evidently lounged for a couple hours by and in the water--he had said there was a hot tub available at the hostel, and had headed off again at speed. When I got to the hostel, I saw him and asked if he'd gotten into the hot tub? Oh yeah, he had said, for like 3 hours! [A note from the future: he would eventually spend, I think, 5 hours in the hot tub. And when he left the hostel I would bump into him again on trail and he would now be grousing about the hot springs by Deep Creek and pushing for those. Some people hike to see the sights (like me), some people hike to make miles (like maybe I need to be more), and evidently some people hike to immerse themselves in whatever body of water's next on the docket!]

-- Another hiker, Toprock, had needed change for the washer/dryer last night, and I had given him 2 quarters. For the rest of the yesterday, and at breakfast today, every time he saw me he would flash a big smile and say, I got your 50 cents, I got your 50 cents, with that relaxed southern drawl of his. So much so that I started not wanting him to return it: it would take away our only topic of conversation! Eventually he did: 2 quarters, plus a nickel (as interest!, he declared, but I suspect just to rid himself of the extra weight!). [And luckily we did have other things to talk about: hiking out from Big Bear, I found that he had hiked the AT, was doing the PCT, and asked the natural question: the CDT? And he gave the natural answer: well, let's get through this first! But he was happy with the PCT so far: very smooth, compared to the AT, and switchbacks--so nice! Toprock's a nice guy, very positive, big smile, and with these cool gaiters that look to have a nebula or something on them: deep black background highlighted with gaseous wisps of bright color.]