Day 26

May 4

Mile 369.5 - Mile 383

Getting a hitch out of Wrightwood was a cinch and we were back on trail by 12:30pm. Right there by the trail was some trail magic so we fueled up on some oranges and Oreos and I took some tootsie rolls for the road.

Wrightwood was good to us and we all felt much refreshed after our zero. Hiking again felt great, which was fortunate since today was Baden-Powell day and we had about 10 miles to go before the 9399' summit. 

Sign with our overall mileage.

Hiking the first 6 miles to the "base" of Baden-Powell was fairly uneventful. We mostly followed above the road, then started gaining some elevation switchback by switchback. Disappointingly, 4 miles before our climb up to the summit, we lost a ton of elevation, dipping 1000'-2000' down to a road.

Small wooded area before bottoming out at the road.

What we thought was trail magic at the road turned out to be a water cache. As usual, we already had enough water so we passed on it.

The climb up Baden-Powell was relatively short and very much to the point. We have been doing these all-day ups and all-day downs recently and this climb was  as straight up as the PCT gets. It actually kinda reminded us of the AT.

View on our way up.

On the ridge leading to the summit. You can see the top on the right.

The "Wally" Waldron tree, perched on the ridge. A wooden sign said the tree is estimated to be approximately 1,500 years old. 

View back east.

Western view. There was a small monument and a trail register you can see down there just below the summit.

We had really nice weather and, amazingly, no wind so we stayed for quite a while up top soaking in the views.

After our summit, we hiked along the ridge line you can see in the "western view" pic above until it got dark.

K. Catts and Sparrow captivated by the sunset.

Another beautiful evening.

The glow of the greater LA area to our southwest after dark.

We called it a day a little less than a mile from our next water source, Little Jimmy Spring, and camped in an old burn area that had a few flat spots. We fell asleep fast and slept well.