May 14, Mile 369-383 (14 Miles)

A quick note about trail culture:  Most PCT thru-hikers are given a trail name, some moniker that reflects upon their personality or appearance, a mistake they have made, or some other inside joke.  If someone has a really cool trail name, like Spitfire, or Dragon Heart, you can rest assured that they came up with it themselves.  No thruhiker is going to give another hiker a name that bad ass.  My trail name, Bambi, was given to me because for the first 450 miles of this hike I was wearing minimalist running shoes and had to sort of prance around rocks and walk around like a baby deer when the trail tread was very rough, hence, Bambi.  Not the toughest name out here, but I think it is bad form to choose your own name.

Beautiful hiking today.  I spent the morning finishing my town chores in Wrightwood, updating my blog, picking up final food items, ect., before heading back onto the trail.  The trail dropped to a low saddle, and then climbed up, with endless switchbacking, up the slopes of 9,400 foot Mt. Baden-Powell.  There is an alternate trail that lead to the summit of the mountain, and I could not resist climbing it.  At the summit you could see the massive expanse of the Mojave Desert, which I will soon be crossing,  far below, along with the LA skyline.  After spending a few hours on the summit, I marched my way down the ridge to my camping spot for the night at Little Jimmy Springs.  Another hiker, who lives in the area, told me that the last time he was at Little Jimmy Springs he had 4 black bears (count em: 1, 2, 3, 4!) try to get into his campsite at night.  So, tonight was the first night that I had to worry about anything getting into my food.  I peed in a circle around my campsite (does this work?  Who knows?) to mark my territory, hung my food in a tree, and went to sleep.