Day 21-25: Big Bear and ADZPCTKO

We took a few days off from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail to attend the Kickoff (ADZPCTKO) at Lake Morena Campground and did not have cell phone service, so we have gotten behind on the blog.

After a zero day at the Big Bear Hostel, Chris and Mumbles gave us a ride to the kickoff in a rented van. Thanks Chris and Mumbles.

The Kickoff is a wonderful celebration of the PCT and this year was no exception. We saw many old friends and met new ones and attended many of the presentations.

This year seemed slightly different with a higher percentage of those attending being thru-hikers than in past years. The kickoff organizers have been struggling with the popularity of the event which is outgrowing the park where it is held.

We went on a shopping spree at the Kickoff. Lon bought a new Six Moon Designs Fusion backpack and we decided to upgrade our tent to a new Zpacks Duplex tent. These two items dropped Lon’s pack weight by about 1.5 pounds and the tent has more room than our old one.

We had some wind and rain at the Kickoff Friday night and Saturday and the new tent handled it well.

We also heard some really sad news at the Kickoff. On Thursday a young 19 year old hiker died while walking the first 20 miles of the PCT to Lake Morena.

Also, we learned that Richey Ruff, the developer behind the PCTHYOH app died shortly before the Kickoff.

On Sunday, White Jeep picked us up at the Lake Morena campground and whisked us off to San Diego. Dal met us there and they outfitted Lon’s pack with an amazing new data logger. Dal then took us to Big Bear, and we hiked the 2.5 miles from Highway 18 to Doble Trail Camp before dark.

Photo: The new Zpacks tent.

Trail Date: April 23 – 27th

Mileage: 2.5 miles