Town. May 17.

People often wonder what happens to thru-hikers when they go into
towns along the trail. How do they get there?
What do they do there? How long do they stay?

Big Bear City is the third "major" town on the PCT. Population 6,025.
Big Bear is spread out over several miles, hugging Big Bear Lake, and
creating a resort-style town, mostly for ski bums from LA. The PCT
intersects Hwy 18 just five miles east of Big Bear City.

Yesterday morning we hiked ten miles in three hours, hit the road at
9am, and immediately prepared for the hitch. The art of the hitch
requires a good connection with the driver (remove sunglasses and
hats, smile profusely) and at a location that allows them to see you,
decide if you are safe to pick up and immediately pull over. With five
people it can be tough, so you typically put a girl in front while the
others hide. We let my pink camo gaiters do the work for us.

You either are invited into the car, and hope that the driver doesn't
mind your stench, or you are sent into the bed of the truck.
Unfortunately, as we soon found out, California law does not allow
people to sit in the back of pickups. To circumvent this requires the
artful leap and duck, launching yourself over the side into the truck
bed, and immediately ducking out of sight. Last night's dinner hitch
had all five of us laying down in the bed of a Datsun pickup truck.
(see evidence above) It was a much needed hitch, as my bottom-of-the-
foot blister had just broken while crossing an intersection, my flip-
flop was soaking wet, and I was yelling, "My water broke! My water
broke!"

Warner Springs Monty appeared in Big Bear to set up a BBQ at the
hostel and gave us a hitch in his pickup...we fit three in front and
five in the covered bed. That was a first for mega-hiker Monty, so we
got some pictures.

It is sometimes easier to just go right up to someone at an
intersection and ask, explaining that you only need to go a mile or
so. I got my first hitch on the back of a motorcycle that way. All in
all, you don't want to ever walk around in spread out towns...so you
rely on good hitches to and fro the grocery store (for resupply of
food), the pharmacy for Vitamin I (ibuprofen) and Epsom salts, the
post office (to receive your boxes of stuff and to mail heavy things
home or ahead) and the multitude of high-calorie meals that are
required for refueling your body.

So far in Big Bear, I have had three meals at Thelma's: Eggs Benedict
with roasted potatoes and fresh OJ (a definite waste of calories in my
non-trail life), prime rib with a baked potato (garnished with a whole
scoop of sour cream and butter: another "real life" no-no) salad and
apple pie a la mode, and this morning's less dense choice of two eggs,
French toast and two sausages. In between meals I have to read the
next section's maps, plan meals for all those days, soak my feet three-
four times per day, ice my latest injury (right now it's a swollen
sacrum from pack rubbing), and determine what I can reduce in weight
on my pack. Today I am cutting off extra lengths of straps all over my
pack. I also ingest ice cream (team zero shared a half-gallon of
Reeses peanut butter cup yesterday), a requisite bag of tortilla
chips, and fruit. Generally the first day out of town makes for lots
of bathroom stops on the trail.

I also shower several times, hopefully with shampoo (this time I found
it in the "hiker box" of leftovers at the Motel 6) but the smell
doesn't really subside completely. Laundry is another chore that
limits what you can do for several hours. If you see people walking
around in long underwear and windbreakers, they are probably hikers
waiting for their cycle to finish.

I would not describe town stops as relaxing. They are the business
days in between the vacations. We had a "nero" yesterday--a near
zero-- and a Zero day today. I am looking forward to finishing this
madness and getting back to the "relaxing" part--the walking.