Day 22: Tent Site @ mile 275 - Tent Site @ mile 294

Date: 29.04.2018 Miles hiked today: 22.5 miles but only 18.5 PCT miles Total Mileage: Mile 294 Since yesterday also Rahel is part of our group. It's nice to have her along too. Her mum left her in Big Bear Lake. This morning we want to get up early. Well said and we started hiking at 6.20am. Our plan is to hike to a nice tent site next to a little river about 19 miles away. As we are in bear country now, we hang our food and smelly products (toothpaste, facial Creme etc.) On a tree at night. It was a cold night again with -1 degree celcuis when we got up around 5:30am. We started hiking without breakfast which we will have when the sun comes and the temperatures are warmer. It went all well and we did our first 3 miles in less than an hour. We hiked on, chatted along, enjoyed the beautiful view down to the lake and Big Bear Lake Village untill later Rahel noticed "oh no we went down the wrong way!" We missed a junction and headed down to Big Bear Lake for 2 miles, all downhill! Well there is nothing we can do than turn and walk the 2 miles back again, this time uphill! This sucks as we got up early and now we have to hike 4 extra non PCT miles plus our backpacks are fully packed with dood for 6 days and loads of water as the next water source is 17.1 miles ahead! Backpacks are always most heavy when leaving a town and best to carry on the day when reaching a town (nearly no food left). And on the way down we even joked several times about other people walking in the wrong direction, or asking us if we come FROM the PCT (Not if we are thruh hikers as we were not in the PCT anymore) - what an irony! We all were annoyed with us not noticing the junction or not checking the maps and hiked back in silence. We actually nearly run back as now we are quite late and have to hike 23 miles to get to our tent site for tonight! By 1pm we hiked 14 miles, 8.5 miles more to go which is very reasonable. We stopped for lunch and a little power nap at a camp site which even had a wooden picnic table and I felt asleep for an hour on the Tablet (could have easily slept longer! It was one of my best sleeps so far on the trail). I had such a good sleep it took me a while to wake up again and I stumbeled along on the trail! 8.5 miles doesnt sound much for the afternoon and 3 miles later in less then an hour only 5.5 miles were left. But my back hurted from the heavy backpack and my blisters started to bother me more again. But we also already hiked 17 miles today! The miles didn't fly by anymore so fast even if we walked very fast. 2.5 miles before reaching the camp I needed a break. I've told Joanne and Rahel to walk ahead as I will walk a little slower. Listening to 'the Killers' the last 2.5 miles were joy again also because we reached a little river in a canyon and it was a very nice hike. I found one of these huge pine cones lying just next to the trail again, they are really massive. (Joanne started a competition wanting to find a bigger one than the last one I picked up.) As Joanne and Rahel were not far from me, I picked it up and I called Joanne. When I showed it to her sge was pissed because she didn't see it lying next to the trail. I am not sure if she is able find an even bigger one than this ;) Rahel and Joanne are both very tall girls and yesterday we checked how much taller they are than me. Joanne is about 1.81 meters tall and Rahel 1.76 meters - me only 1.65m :( but I am also much lighter than they are and have to carry the same heavy backpacks :(! That is clearly a disadvantige for me. Sometimes I can hardly keep track with them if they run along the trail. Especially Joanne loves uphill and as soon as the trail goes up she gets faster ;) like a dog who sees a big bone she takes off to reach the hill asap! Anyway back to the pine cone... so Rahel mumbels along "she is also closer to the ground than we are! For her its easier to see and spot things lying on the trail!" Pha some advantages for not being that tall I shall also deserve!! :))