Billy Goat and Captain American arrived around noon. Billy Goat is PCT trail legend--having done the trail at least 7 times. He's also done the AT, but calls this PCT "home". When I first asked him where he was from, he said "I live on the PCT". We talked a lot about trail logitics. He is skipping over the Sierras and jumping ahead to northern CA. This will put him in WA in August when there is no rain. He will do the Sierras in Sept when all the snow will be gone, and the water so low that he won't be fording any rivers. When you hike straight through, you'll have to deal with bugs, some snow and ford up to seven rivers a day in the Sierras.
We finally hitched out of Wrightwood around 2pm getting a ride from a couple from Palmdale. We got back on the trail at Inspiration Point were we got off yesterday. Just a few minutes down the trail we arrived at the Grassy ? Visitors center. There was an exhibit on pine cones that we attempted to memorize--so I can say with reasonable certainty that the predonant conifers on our hike today were Jeffery, Sugar and Sequoia. I also learned that the black and white banded snake I saw sunning itself by the side of the trail the other day was a King Snake.
We were a slow movng train today. We ran into lots of day hikers--and talked to most of them including a Boy Scout troop training for Philmont. Most of our day was spent climbing Mt Baden Powell--named after the founder of the Boy Scouts. It was a 4 1/2 mile hike up to the peak that took us to 9300 ft. Even though the grade was not particularly difficult, we did a lot of huffing and puffing on the way up--particularly since we just resupplied for 5 days. I think we both felt like a couple of pack mules.
Due to our late start, we only hiked about 11-12 miles. I expect it will be a pretty cold night as we are camped at over 8000 ft.
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