Big Bear City, CA

Hey everybody,



Whew! This has been our longest stretch without resupply so far and it was a tough one! We went from 9,000 ft, to 1,200 feet and back up to 8,700 ft before we arrived at Big Bear City. All the elevation change was worth it though because this last section was BEAUTIFUL! Mountains, canyons and even some forested areas, a nice change from sandy ole' desert.



We left Idyllwild with Matt and Denali, two guys we met about a week ago who are from Tennessee. The first day was pretty grueling but we got some amazing views. The next day, frankly, sucked. We had to descend the north face of the mountain and it was very steep! Going downhill all day really tires you out. The day after made up for it when we hiked through Fish Hatchery Canyon next to Whitewater River. We caught beautiful views of mountians, including our new favorite: "Mt. Sugarlump" (no kidding). Matt and Denali caught back up with us under a shady tree we were napping at to escape the heat (we had hiked ahead a few days before), but we left them behind again as we took off for our last few days to Big Bear. We realized that we were scheduled to arrive in town on Sunday, but we had a mail drop being sent to us there so we had to up our milage to make it there on Saturday. It was tough, but we are super hard-core, so we made it.



We're staying at a super nice hostel for campers and had relaxing night sleeping in a bed. We went kayaking this morning and are now off to the grocery store to buy food for our next leg of the trip. We are meeting Aloe's dad in Wrightwood and are going to hang out with him for a few days and we are sooooo excited to see him!



The best part of all is that we got to upload some pictures! This is about 1% of all the pics we have taken so far, but they are the best ones.



We miss all of you and will write again this weekend when we meet up with Bob.



Peace,



Luke and Aloe