Day 25
I’ve often had problems with getting cold late at night/in the early morning even though my sleeping bag is supposed to handle much lower temperatures. Today was one of those days despite the fact that I was more or less wearing all of my clothing while sleeping in the sleeping bag. I am apparently a very cold sleeper. I’ll buy another pair of long johns so I could wear two pairs and see if that suffices. Otherwise I will have to get a new bag.
Despite the cold sleep, the day turned out to be a good one as it brought the Pacific Crest Trail by Mount Baden Powell with Powell being the founder
Of the original scout association. I had feared that carrying my bag with all the food I bought yesterday would be a pain like it was yesterday, but by a poorly understood quantum electrodynamic phenomenon, ones pack weight seems to be lowest in the morning and gradually grow through the day 😉
The hiking up Mount Baden Powell took quite a bit of effort, but luckily it was nicely graded, so it was just a matter of taking it one switchback at a time. The views from the top were very nice, perhaps even better than San Jacinto. With today being a Saturday there were quite a bit of other people summiting, which detracted slightly from the experience. Quite a bit of the so-called day hikers asked if I was doing the PCT, so locally the trail is at least relatively well known. On a plate there was listed deeds of scouting with one being to keep clean, so I guess truhiking is a rather non-scout activity. near the top were also a lot of high altitude firs, which grow very slowly (I’m sorry that I haven’t looked up the exact name). One in particular was believed to be 1500 years old.
Camped at the largest camp site I have ever seen on the trail with room for over 100 people with most of the current visitors being scouts and other non-truhikers. Hopefully it won’t be too loud to sleep. There were set up a handful of bear boxes. Despite the name they are not meant to store bears, which would be considered a camp site necessity by the average Joe. Just kidding. They are of course for storing food so that bears can’t get to it and are made of metal.
