So long Mount San Jacinto, we hardly knew ye

Miles yesterday: 20.3 (our longest day yet!)

Miles so far: 210.8*

Looking up the mountain from Deer Springs Trail

Guys, I have a confession to make: we cheated a little bit. Due to a wildfire in 2013, the trail is closed from mile 162 to 177. If we were purists, we could have hiked up the mountain from 152 to 162, back down via a side trail, then back up via Idyllwild. However, the water situation was sketchy, hiking up and down the same mountain twice sounded like the least fun, and to be honest, we just didn’t want to, so instead we hitchhiked from the Paradise Valley Cafe off mile 152 into Idyllwild and then rejoined the trail at mile 183 via Deer Springs Trail from town. We skipped about 16 miles of hikable trail but at less than 1% of total trail miles, we don’t feel bad about it. Call it a thru* hike if you take offense. 

Anyway, we celebrated Sara’s birthday with beer and humongous burgers at the cafe and caught a ride into town with a very nice older couple. Our first time hitch hiking! We were worried it would take a while but we had our thumbs out for literally two minutes. We ended up taking a zero day on the 19th in Idyllwild, an adorable mountain town of about 3500, spending our time enjoying ample cell service and chatting with the folks at the historical society. 

The next day, we got up bright and early to hike Deer Springs Trail up to the PCT. Over four miles we climbed from 5600 ft to over 8000 ft – the elevation was killer! We were huffing and puffing like crazy towards the top. But man, it was beautiful!

  

Trees! Shade! Running water! It was like being up in Washington again. Very refreshing after so much arid desert and chapparal. God I cannot wait to get out of the desert. We even saw snow!

SoCal snow on Mt San Jacinto

After rejoining the PCT, we climbed another 900 ft over three miles, collecting water around 9000 ft elevation. 

Taking a break on a sunny rock, mile 186

Party at the water source, mile 186

…and then we plunged 8000 feet down over about 20 miles back into the desert. There’s a huge wind farm in this valley and as one would expect, some of the windiest conditions I’ve experienced, on the trail or off. Coming off the mountain wasn’t so bad but as soon as we entered the valley, we were bent over with our shoulders to the wind. I’d guess it was gusting over 60mph. We’re both super grateful we had our poles to keep us upright! I wish I had some pictures of the trees growing sideways in the wind, but we were just too tired. 

View of the peak from Ziggy’s. Two days ago we were just to the right of the peak. Yesterday we spent the day walking down the ridge and across the valley.

I am very happy to report that although I had some bad knee pain on the rough trail two days ago from 186 to 190 (switchbacks down! switchbacks up! switchbacks down again!), my knees had almost no pain yesterday on the plunge down Fuller Ridge from 190 to 206. I rolled out my IT bands a whole hell of a lot and I think that made a huge difference. We were super worried about the descent and very happy it worked out so well. 

We’re resting easy this morning at the hiker house owned by trail angels Ziggy and the Bear. What a wonderful respite! This afternoon we’re going to start the climb back up into the mountains to over 8000 ft, hiking around San Gorgonio Mountain and expecting to hit Big Bear in about three days. A nice little warm up for the Sierras!

If you’re just following the blog, I encourage you to take a peek at our Facebook page as well – we’re putting some extra pictures up there.