Day 22: Fly, fly!
The biting flies disappeared today. These flies look like a harmless house fly, but bite like a horsefly bite. I encountered them before the PCT, but not with such ferocity. Today’s hike was a steady 20 mile uphill hike. The gradient wasn’t too bad, about 8%, but it meant I had to go slowly, going uphill at a slow, steady pace. That’s perfect for flies. When there wasn’t a strong breeze, they gathered around me. These little monsters can chew through tights and permethrin doesn’t seem to deter them. His favorite target was the back of my thighs and my butt. I now have a dozen or more red welts on the back of my legs.
Respite
Fortunately, other than the bugs, the hike was quite pleasant. From the side of the mountain I could see for miles and miles as the trail wound toward and past Mount Baldy. A friend had tried to reach the summit of Baldy a couple of days ago, but found himself blocked by snow and ice 2/3 of the way up. I knew it wouldn’t be safe to continue.
scare away fly
In the afternoon it was the turn of the black flies. They swirled around me in a thick cloud. When I saw someone coming the other way with a bug net, I briefly thought about stopping to get mine out of my backpack. But that would have meant letting the swarm land, so I kept walking. When I got to my camp, they really stepped up their game. I did a crazy, frantic fly swatting dance as I tried to pitch my tent with black flies trying to get into every orifice of my face. Snorting black flies is bad enough, but when the flies literally bounce off your eyeballs, you can go pretty crazy. Finally, I was able to escape the horde in my comfortable little tent and fly free.
Day 23: Wrightwood
The area around Wrightwood was the site of a major fire in 2024. This morning I walked through a burned area filled with dirt and blackened trees. Firefighters had been hard at work clearing the road and trail and cutting down burned but standing trees that were in danger of falling. The first part was just dirt and dead trees. Everything else had been reduced to ashes. As I walked, I began to see signs of regeneration. Small plants, no more than two or three inches tall, carpeted the forest floor.
The devastation that a wildfire can cause is why there is a ban on open flames in California, or at least there is one under the PCT. This is a light snow year, which will be good for hikers trying to traverse snow in the Sierra, but bodes poorly for wildfires. Most years hikers have to skip or detour around large fires, and I expect that, as wildfires go, this year will be bad.
Hero
I came to Wrightwood in search of a “hero,” a dip in the city preceded and followed by a walk. The hardware store in Wrightwood is central for hikers. On a wall they post the phone numbers of the trail angels available for rides. They also have a hiker rest area in the back with a charging station and, most importantly, a shady place to sit. Sign your registration and they will give you a free PCT pin.
At the store checkout I found a brace that I thought might be useful for my still sore knee. I’ve never had knee problems, so I didn’t really know how to put on the knee brace. I struggled with that. Nothing seemed right. When I centered the hole over my knee, the back of the brace seemed to overlap strangely. Another hiker joined in to help me figure it out. None of us had much luck despite Googling the brand of the brace. Finally, he had the clever idea to take a photo of the product label and use ChatGPT. «Hmm,» he said with a small giggle, «I see the problem.» She showed me the results. I had been trying to get an ankle brace on my knee. Uhhhh…
After a few hours back to civilization, I returned to the trail to hike to the base of Mount Baden-Powell, the adventure of tomorrow.
When he let me out of his truck, my driver commented that there was no “rescue” between the trailhead and the other side of Baden-Powell. He was right. When I briefly crossed the road leading to the base of the mountain, I found it covered in debris, with grass growing in large cracks, a legacy of the fire that damaged parts of the road. But as always when a comment like this is made to me, I was caught between feeling touched by the person’s concern and a little insulted by the condescension implicit in the words of the inevitably male and middle-aged speaker, as if I wasn’t as capable as the boys of taking care of myself. Never mind, to Mount Baden-Powell.
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