| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-06-18 01:24:23 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Eric Gilbertson
June 5-11 San Gabriel mountains near Los Angeles Total distance: 120 miles I had a week before my JPL internship started, so I decided to hike on the Pacific Crest Trail for a while. I took buses as close the the mountains as possible near pasadena and started hiking on Tuesday afternoon. Not even 3 hours into the woods I managed to stumble upon a mother bear and cub. The cub of course climbed a tree right over the trail, with the mother fiercly guarding from the ground and even bluff charging me. I couldn't go back because it was getting dark and there hadn't been any campable places in the past hour, but I couldn't go forward because momma bear would attack me. So, I had to wait out of sight for half an hour until they finally left. As if that weren't enough, about a mile more down the trail I saw another bear bolt into the woods. This was strong motivation to hang my food at night, and I made do with two shoelaces and compass string (I had forgotten to bring rope). On Day 2 I reached the PCT and headed south. My plan was to hike 2 more days south, then come back the same way to ensure that I made it to JPL in time for work on the next monday. Unfortunately it hadn't rained for months in southern california and all the springs were dry. So I basically had to carry all my water for the day on my back and fill up if I passed a campground. Sometimes these would be 20 miles apart, so my pack became quite heavy. Day 3: I made it over mount Baden Powell (9,400ft), which had an awesome view of LA to the west and desert to the east. This was the only place on the trail where I had cell phone service, and I sent my parents a quick text message to tell them I was still alive. I was hoping for some snow at that altitude, but unfortunately the only snow was way over on mount baldy, a 10,000 footer. Baden Powell did have some multi-thousand year old bristlecone pine trees which were pretty neat. That night I made it a few miles past Baden Powell, and spent the night at my turnaround point. I basically retraced my steps back to Pasedena over the next three days, and ironically had an identical bear encounter. This time I was in the twin peaks area and again inadvertently scared a cub into a tree. Luckily this time the mother bear also climbed the tree, so I was able to pass without fear of attack. I made it back to Pasadena by monday morning, just in time for my internship orientation. This was a good introduction to the PCT and I hope to hike the whole thing some day. |