November 12

Distance: 26.4 miles | Ascent: 4360′ | Descent: 2980′

Mile marker: 2618.6

Lunch: J&A – potatoes with summer sausage (B+,?)

Dinner: J&A – rice and beans with summer sausage (B+,?)

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Southern California is great! We’re celebrities. Everyone we meet now is in awe of how far we’ve come, and encouragingly cheers us on as we get ever closer.

We got up early to crush the hill that we didn’t quite reach the night before. At the top we saw two of our friends camped and sprawled out near the spring. They were enjoying their slow morning. 

We crossed 2600 miles, our last 100-mile milestone!

As we hiked south, dusty mountains made for some of the best scenery in all southern California. We ran into a few day hikers scouting for a proposal site. They were so ecstatic to hear our story.

We also ran into a section hiker who was doing this SoCal stretch. He was documenting his trip and took our picture. Who know who’ll see our picture or who might recognize us.

Shortly after these two encounters, we stumbled across trail magic at a campground with a spring – an obvious stop for hikers. The woman giving trail magic was a northbound hiker who had finished the trail just a few weeks ago. On a whim, she decided to drive out from San Diego to provide trail magic. She didn’t know if there would be any hikers. Boy howdy was she surprised when eight of us showed within half an hour! This was the SOBO bubble. Her timing and location couldn’t have been more perfect. She was excited to bring us lonely and forgotten SOBOs some magic. She even took our trash! No more hiking with an empty pie tin. We hiked out with our buddy TimTam.

We carried on to our campsite for the night near the last natural and reliable water source until the end. As we got close, two day hikers asked what was in the direction from where we were coming. Jason, being the smartass, said “Canada!” They were stunned to learn we had been hiking for four months. They almost thought they were lying. Our grizzled and rugged look proved we weren’t lying.

The days are flying by now. The end is so close. It’s hard to believe we’ll be done in just a few days. Then no more hiking. What else is there to do?