April 24

With nowhere to be until the afternoon shuttle the five of us slept in until after 6:00am. Hot coffee, orange juice, and the sounds of the morning shuttle group eventually got us up, however.

The morning shuttle and a few other trail angels emptied the place out until it was just the five of us. At around noon he new batch of hikers started coming in off the mountain, all looking quite windswept. We sat around playing board games to pass the time.

Brenna, the shuttle driver, showed up around 1:30pm and we were on the road by 2:00pm. The shuttle made a one hour detour to see a friend of hers along the way and we got a mini tour of Big Bear City.

The three of us (now known along the trail as The Three Bears thanks to Raptor) got dropped off at Papa Smurf and Mountain Mama's place while Loopy and Raptor headed into town to take care of a few things.

Rickets and I walked to the general store to pick up a few things, including hot dogs for dinner. It was around 7:30pm by the time we all made it back and ate. The rest of the hikers were watching Wayne's World inside but the three of us were already feeling a little strange about being off trail for so long and all the yellow-blazing around the fire closures so we set up outside and headed to bed.