Leaving the Monkey in Mexico: Snow, Poodledog Brush, and 60 Miles in 2 Days

In Wrightwood I had my picture taken at the Village Grind Cafe, a cool little hiker-friendly place with a laid-back atmosphere. The owners, Greg and Linda, love to talk to the hikers, hear about their adventures, and put the pictures of the current year's hikers who pass through up on the wall. They even offered to let me sleep on the deck outside the cafe if I decided to stay in town- how cool is that?

I had a great time at the Kickoff party back in Campo but it was a bit of a shock finding myself suddenly thrown in with a crowd of hundreds of people after weeks of relative solitude out on the trail. I'd never been around so many backpackers before and it was fun to be able to talk about gear and thu-hiking with other people who have the same interests.

I saw Heart there and as far as I know she was the only one from the group I met in the storm who returned South for the Kickoff. However Ron, the wedding-dress hiker, also came back and told me that he'd taken the trail-name, "Train." Additionally, I met Andy, an old friend from High School, who'd coincidentally decided to do a thru-hike this year. He'll be almost a month behind me on the trail, along with most of the "herd," so it will be unlikely that we'll hike together, but it was nice to see him and we had a good visit.
One of the more entertaining events at the kick-off was a contest where hikers demonstrated gear that they'd made and the audience voted on the best one. There was a pair of hiking poles with multiple uses such as ice-axe heads that could assembled from pieces and screwed on, a couple of DIY packs, a homemade tent, and a number of other cool inventions and ideas. The winner was a hiker who created a free app for a smart phone that gathers a ton of useful trail data that is available online and puts it in one place- you can read more about it here.

Also at the Kickoff were vender booths set up with hiking gear and I bought an attachment that allows me to hold my camera out at the end of my hiking pole in order to take a picture of myself with the timer. I'm still getting the hang of it so in many of my pictures you'll notice that I'm doing something weird with my hand.

When I returned to Wrightwood I briefly talked to a hiker I hadn't met before named Francis. He was a quiet, pleasant young man who was planning to leave the trail for awhile in order to see a Doctor about a bad infected toe he'd been suffering with for a week or so. Hopefully he'll be able to return to the trail once he heals-up.

Also in Wrightwood I ran into Jessy James, who I'd met a week ago while coming out of Big Bear, and I decided to wait in town a few extra hours so he and I could hike together.

We had a long slog up to the Baden Powell Summit 9000 ft above Wrightwood which was made worse by the snow which was covering most of the trail as we neared the top. The view was fantastic from the top, however, and there was also this amazing 1500 year-old tree clinging to the ridge. We camped close to the summit amid patches of snow.

In the middle of the week James and I found ourselves walking through a barren, burned-out landscape where fires had recently ravaged the landscape. Unfortunately there is a toxic plant called Poodledog Brush that is native to this part of California and loves to move into burned-out areas and take over so we spent about 20 miles dodging around it. Trail legend holds that the skin irritation caused by the plan can be so bad that it regularly lands hikers into the hospital and sometimes knocks people off the trail all together.