Spicy Cheetos with Pickles – The Trek

The goal for today was to keep things nice and stable. We had a slow morning getting ready at the hotel and then were taken to the Dollar General for our last food shuttle to Big Bear.

I came out with some weird snacks. I think the highlight might be the Hot Cheetos with Dill Pickles. I’ll tell you how they are.

We didn’t start walking until 10:20 am It was another very windy day. The hood on my sun shirt was driving me crazy so I designed a little head wrap behind the ears. Today was my first day hiking with Jug. I found out that he studied philosophy at school, so he had a lot of interesting topics and questions to talk about.

Great news for the day, we arrived at Section C! Section C is the beginning of Mission Creek. It is known for being a difficult part of the trail because it washes away every year, creating entirely new terrain for hikers to navigate. We have a solid group of 5 people coming together to hike the trail. I am confident that we will be fine.

We took a nice break at the Whitewater River, which is our first river crossing on the trail. Although it was easy to stay dry with the help of some makeshift log bridges. I put on a podcast and continued climbing a few more miles to camp.

At camp we cooked and had dinner together with the most beautiful view. A hiker stopped by and gave us scratch-and-sniff dinosaur stickers in exchange for pink nail polish and a dolphin tattoo. The stickers smell like groups of nerds. Amazing. Cool Beans named the Scratch & Sniff trail.

Tonight’s sunset was a super pretty pastel ombré that overtook San Jacinto all the way to Palm Springs. We are camped on top of a ridge with views in all directions. It’s surreal to look up at San Jacinto and realize that yesterday we were right on top of it. It seems so far away.

Let’s hope the wind stays calm tonight.

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