Mile: 364 of 2,668.

Mile: 364 of 2,668.

We had just been snowed on while hiking through the desert a couple of days before, and we were headed west around Big Bear Lake towards the Angeles National Forest. With two huge climbs in the morning we set up camp right at sunset and caught some amazing sight seeing along the way. After we took it in for a bit, moments later as we made our dinners, a helicopter flew right over us at a very low altitude.

It was as if they were searching for something down below in the valleys that surrounded us. We watched as it flew off over the ridge and let down a rescue person via a rope. After the rescue person reached the ground they disconnected from the line and threw out two flares to mark where they were for the helicopter to return later and retrieve them.

A couple of minutes later a few ambulances showed up across the way, and the helicopter returned to retrieve its passengers that it had deployed earlier, plus the victims of the accident down below. Turns out there was a car wreck and the people had to be air lifted out. It made the circumstances of the hike that much more real, and changed the way I looked at my day to day from that point on. Life is short, enjoy it while you can but careful to treat the world around you with respect, because you never know when it will attempt to try and take that from you.