Day 25 (29 May)

Miles 356.7 to 369.3. Bushcamp to Wrightwood.


It‘s my birthday today, yaaay! And we will arrive in Wrightwood today where our friends are waiting, double-yaaay!

The night was rather short because we only arrived at our tentsite at 10.30pm (quite late for our thruhiking standards), but the excitement to be in town today has us getting up quite easily. We walk the remaining 13 miles, half of which are still uphill, the other half dramatically downhill. We can hardly contain our excitement when we finally arrive at mile 369.3 from where we can hitch into town.

We are picked up instantly by an elderly couple (turns out they are both 92 years old!) out on an afternoon drive in the area, without even having to lift a finger. They go on telling us about the area and Wrightwood and want to know everything about our hike. When we arrive in town they make a detour to show us their house and then the rest of town, which is very cute. But when you have been walking through the desert for like 5 days and haven‘t showered during that time, you just really want to arrive, take a long shower followed by a long bath, start washing all the filthy clothes and eat a delicious fresh meal. So we are beyond happy when we finally arrive at the guesthouse Wizard and Speedy had booked for the four of us and get to shower!

The others aren‘t in the room yet, so I am on the phone to my mum when they get there. They throw around balloons in the room and jump into bed with me. Finally we are reunited! Wizard takes out the wine and pour us all a glass or two. It‘s 1pm, we are clean, wine in our hands, life is good! We spend the afternoon eating lunch, doing laundry (well, Wizard and Speedy are doing most of our laundry, thank you guys!!), popping blisters (one of mine had filled up with dirt and looked disgusting - see below) and just chilling in our hotel room. Around 7.30pm we walk over to the Mexican Restaurant and start the night with 5cent-Margaritas. Wizard brought a birthday balloon with her and we just keep getting spoiled! The food is delicious and when we are done the staff comes over and sings a birthday song and they put a sombrero on my head and feed me ice cream. By that time HongKong 4, four friends from Hong Kong, have stopped by and they come back to our room with us where Dario has a birthday chocolate cake ready. They try to put 31 candles on it and it looks so funny because the candles just start dripping instantly with all the wax. We all laugh so hard about the whole situation.


I feel incredibly lucky to be spending my trail birthday partially on trail and partially in town with all these amazing souls. When thruhiking you really don‘t need much to feel real happiness. I love living outside, being surrounded by nature all the time, carrying our home in our packs. We never know which day it is, we get up with the sun in the morning, go to bed when the sun goes down and take breaks whenever we feel that our bodies need it.
The biggest excitement comes from flowing water sources, trail magic and town stops. A hot shower becomes the greatest luxury and fresh food in town the biggest reward. The last month hasn‘t been easy, in fact, it’s been really hard at times, but it‘s the little things that motivate us, keep us going and bring us real and genuine happiness. Yes, I am feeling really lucky today on my 31st birthday.