Wrightwood – Big Bear Lake – Day 149 – Mon Nov 20th

Day 149 Mon Nov 20th
Big Bear Lake
2361.1 –
Approx. ft ascent ft descent
Zero day.

Tiana rustled us up a cooked breakfast before taking us into Big Bear. She gave us the royal tour on the way to the Post Office and Supermarket.

At the PO we picked up any boxes we had sent to Big Bear Lake. We then bounced them down to the PO at Campo (our final destination).
If you don’t open a parcel that you send to a US PO, then you can just keep bouncing it to another PO further down trail.
This is an excellent way of saving money and making sure you can pick up gear when you think you may need it. And if you don’t you just keep bouncing it.

One of the boxes we had sent had been returned to sender. But to be fair this was just an old pair of trail runners and some food, so I wasnt that concerned.

The lady in the PO was very helpful.
And whilst we waited in line we spoke to some of the locals, who were interested in our adventures.
One guy called Jay even offered to take us back to the trail, which was unbelievably kind.

Tiana then dropped us to the Supermarket called Vons. We said our goodbyes and headed off to resupply.
She seemed sad to see us go and gave us both a lovely warm hug goodbye. What a nice lady she was to us!

We then spent the remainder of the day in the Library. Updating the blog and checking over the content for the last few sections.
This requires a lot of work as the voice typing software on my phone isn’t great. The content often doesn’t make sense due to me being either on top of a windy mountain and / or out of breath when I record our daily ramblings.
Predictive text also does a great job of messing up content and miss spelling words etc.

Once again the Library was host to some interesting characters. One middle aged man (not me) kept talking to himself and playing with cuddly toys offering them upto the computer screen in front of him?!?
Like you might do with a small baby. It was very strange indeed!

By the time we’d left the Library it was dark and bitterly cold. The Christmas lights were lit up around Big Bear making it a magical place to be.

Big Bear was quite spread out and used a free trolley / bus system to help transport people around.
Jay had told Sarah of an app where you could track the location of the trolleys and the stops. This was great in helping us navigate our way round this unfamiliar town.

We had arranged to stay in the ITH hostel for the night in a private double room.
The hostel was a rustic looking building and came highly recommended by our pal Smiles.
The hostel was a great place to stay and it even had a resident burmese mountain dog which greeted us on arrival.

Once we arrived at the hostel and checked in, we then went out to the Himalayan restaurant for one of the best curries on trail.
We were both like kids in candy stores looking through the menu,which featured a delicious range of Indian cuisine.

Returning back to the cosy warm hostel a fire was lit in the main reception hall.
There were a number of guests sitting round the fire chatting and making s’mores and they invited us to join them.

We were beat and opted for an early night.
Jay had kindly agreed to pick us up from the hostel at 06:00, so we had a very early start tomorrow.

We were both thoroughly impressed with Big Bear and all the kind people we met.
It was a little like South Lake Tahoe in that it featured a ski resort and lake, just on a smaller scale.
There were also plenty of restaurants, bars and entertainment options.
With it all lit up with Christmas lights it was a great trail town + it certainly lived up to the reputation and was one of our favourite stops so far.