USA - Day 12 - East Flats campsite - Big Bear City

This is the route we biked today.

We got up at 06:30 so that the sun would be up because it was a cold night. My guess is temperatures were around freezing. I wasn’t too cold and it was an ok night but I think this is the limit of my sleeping gear.

We cycled directly to the closed highway and asked if we could cycle on it. The guy answered no but there was a trail we could take. So we did that.

It wasn’t the easiest singletrack but it was ok and after a while we came back on the road. We asked the construction crew if we could pass and they said yes. We cycled for quite some kilometres and didn’t see any major roadwork going on. At a certain point we got stopped by somebody from CalTrans and he said that the road was closed and that we should be safe.

I think the major work of fixing the road after the storm damage was done and we did see a couple of points where they had rebuild the road because it got washed out. We were really lucky that we got to cycle on the closed road.

And then we hit the offroad climb which was going to take us to 2 660m, higher than Mount Baldy! It was a very rocky road but luckily not too steep. I got pretty annoyed about the bumpiness but we managed to get to the top around 12:00.

On the way up and on the way down we got a couple of nice views and a couple of people in 4x4s passing by saying we were hardcore 😇

Since we arrived in Big Bear City around 13:30 we had plenty of time to get some drinks before heading to our campsite. We stocked up on tortillas, nutella, a beer to share, water and some nuts. After that we got a burger so we didn’t need to cook at the campsite.

We cycled to our campsite, which is a PCT trail camp but it was the only one we could find near Big Bear City. We shared our beer and talked about our route and now I’m laying in my tent typing this post.

It’s only 17:30 but it’s dark and cold so the best place now is in my sleeping bag in my tent.

See you tomorrow!