WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

PCT DAY 13:  Mile 252.2 (Mt Onyx Summit –  Mile 259.4
Tuesday April 26, 2016: 7.2 miles (11.5km)

So happy to get out of that horrible weather last night and into a warm hotel room. A hot shower later and we were beginning to feel normal again. What a relief. Today we faced a problem of getting from Banning to rejoining the trail.
The PCT Trail is closed from the south boundary of the San Bernadino National Forest at Mile 234.5 to Mt Onyx Summit at Mile 252.1 due to a fire a few years ago. There was no easy way around the fire closure area. To get on and off the trail meant leaving the trail at Mile 211 and rejoining at Mt Onyx Summit at mike 252.1.  So we end up missing  41 miles of the PCT in and around the San Giorgino wilderness area.   But first we had to find a way of getting from Banning to Big Bear Lake. All the possible ways to get to the open section of the  trail required either complicated bus connections, expensive taxis or hoping to get a ride with a volunteer at Ziggy and the Bears.  As we were staying in a hotel and there were 6 adults and 2 children it worked out the best option was to hire a car in Banning and drop it off at Big Bear Lake. This worked out perfectly as Sasha and Eady, the young couple who came with us from Ziggy and the Bears last night, were going to have a rest day in Big Bear Lake anyway and were able to drop the rest of us at the trail. Perfect solution, who’d have thought a small town like Banning would have a car rental place.

We were back on the trail by mid afternoon after stopping to buy some provisions to take us out till the next resupply at Wrightwood.  So happy to be back and walking. Last night’s ferocious storm felt like a distant memory as we slowly got absorbed by the silent majesty of the pine forest we were walking through.  The pine trees appeared to be different species to those we saw in the San Jacinto forest.  These trees were enormous. There was hardly any wind and the sun was shining. Perfect hiking conditions. Hard to believe that yesterday we started and ended the day in a wild and furious windy storm. And now, not a breath of wind. We made just a bit over 7 miles in 3 hours and stopped just before the sun disappeared behind the horizon of trees.