June 4th - Jackson Flats Campground to near Glenwood Camp

Fortunately, the storm died down overnight and we woke to partly blue skies. We were thrilled since we knew that we had Mt. Baden-Powell to climb first thing. We were still a little unsure of the weather, so we wanted to get up and down the mountain as soon as possible in case additional storms decided to brew. We felt well rested after a relatively easy day the previous day.

The weather was cool and progressively got colder and windier the higher up we climbed on Mt. Baden-Powell. We kept a fairly steady pace up the endless switchbacks, occasionally with a huff and puff from me as I tried to maximize oxygen. For some reason, I could feel the thinner air - especially after taking of water. Still haven't mastered breathing while drinking. Tom doesn't get it (and I'm sure no one else does either).

We made it to the top of Mt. Baden-Powell by 8:00am. Took the obligatory summit photos and got the heck out of dodge - before we froze to death in the below freezing wind chill.

The rest of the day passed by quickly. With the cooler temps the miles flew by. The trail was scenic - frequently crossing Hwy 2 back and forth as it zig zagged across the mountains. We saw lots of fire trucks driving along the highway and stopped at turnouts. We stopped one of the fireman and asked about forest fires. They said there were several small fires that had been started by lightening strikes in the previous day, but they were all under control and no where near the PCT. We had a 3 mile road walk detour due to part of the trail being closed to help protect the yellow-legged mountain frog.

Had an early dinner at Buckhorn C.G. with lovely spigots of fresh water. Tom had mentioned the previous day that he had been itching a lot on his back and was afraid he had come down with poison oak. Sure enough, his back was covered with nasty red bumps. Luckily, we had bought some Zenfel in Big Bear so we used the water from the spigot to help lather up the paste and wash away the toxins. Our fingers were crossed that it would help.

We continued on down the trail after dinner in a mindless wander. We came around a slight bend in the trail and I saw a small, brown, furry creature scuttle up a tree. My first thought was "bear!", but then I thought, nah, that was too small for a bear. But quickly a much larger, furry brown creature came across the trail. Momma Bear wasn't too happy to encounter us, but gave a quick stare down and followed her little cub up the tree as well. It was my first momma/cub bear experience...and the first time I had seen 2 bears scurry up a tree. I was in awe, but Tom was in protective ranger mode. He did the proper hollering and slowly backing away. Obviously, the bears weren't going any where, and since the tree was right next to the trail, we needed to find another route. The trail was quite steep and brushy, so bushwhacking was not the optimal choice. We looked at our maps to try to find another option. As fate would have it, there was a jeep road that we had just passed and it ended up meeting up with the trail just a mile away. So, we safely evaded the bears via the jeep road...without much of a detour.

Made our hoped 30 miles for the night (plus 2 additional reroute miles) - settling down near what appeared to be a sledding hill in the winter (due to all the plastic sled carcasses littering the field).