Day 17 6/1 22mi.

We started the mornings hike by carefully avoiding a plant called Poodle Dog Bush if it touchs you it gives u a very bad rash, blisters, and is very itchy/painful. Farhter up the trail we may have to take a detour to avoid it, but here we could carefully get past it without making contact. We hikied higher up into the mountains, laterbin the day we made it to about 9000 feet again. Soon after we got done climbing as I was walking along and heard a bunch of really loud crashing just in front of me!! We saw our first bear this afternoon. As soon as it say me and ran, crashing through the trees, up the mountain and away from me. Carly was a little behind me and saw when it got higher up the mountain.

At about 1 we stopped after having done about half the days miles and took a nap under a tree near an old dirt road. One truck went by as we we're packing up and the guy waved to us, that's the only other person we saw all day.

We went on to walk past a facility where stunt animals are kept for movies. We saw 2 bears and a tiger.

After a couple more miles we came across some trail magic!!! A hostel in the town of Big Bear Lake left a bunch of pop, bananas, cookies, and a couch to hang out on. So we tokk a little break and enjoyed some simple luxuries.

We went on to camp in a small canyon next to a creek.