Day 32: Mile 454- Hiker Heaven

Hello again everyone,

We are here in Aqua Dulce CA., writing to you from Hiker Heaven. You're probably all sick of hearing me blabber on about trail magic, but this place is sweet. It's home to the Saufly's a great couple who completely decked out their property for us. We're talking 10 big heavy duty tents with 4 cots in each, 2 campers, one with a kitchen and shower, they do our laundry, have about 20 loaner bikes to take into town and basically everything a hiker would want or need. So naturally we've spent much of yesterday and all of today hanging out here, catching up with the people we haven't seen for a while, restocking on supplies, getting some much needed R and R, and in our typical fashion... getting drunk.

But now let me try and recall all the events leading up to this point. We left Wrightwood and set out to conquer Mt. Baden Powell. The bad weather rolling in kept many hikers in town for another night, but being the bad ass mountain men we are, we pushed on. It was a pretty awesome climb though. There was a heavy fog and high winds from the minute we hit the trail head, but once we got to the top we were being blasted with 60 mph gusts of winds, trying to knock us off the path and bouncing chunks of ice off our faces. We missed out on what could have been a great view, but it was a much mroe thrilling experience climbing it when we did. We got down the other side, set up camp and tried to warm up around the fire before settling in for a cold icy night. The next day was a little better, the fog and wind settled down a bit and we set off again. This day wasn't too out of the ordinary, although I did accidentally send half my trekking pole down a hill trying to play pinecone baseball, and I had a bit of an accident with my alcohol stove and fuel bottle that ended up shooting a stream of flaming alcohol 10 feet and set the grass on fire. But I found my pole and we got the fire taken care of quickly. No harm no foul. We also met a cool couple in a camp ground we walked through, JR and Rose, who made us delicious PB&J's and promised next year thru-hikers some pasta dinner trail magic. Cool people.

Now it's time for some rest at the Saufly's before heading out to Casa de Luna, home of the Anderson's, and yet another place to not hike.