Out of Idyllwild we had new shoes, a days rest, and a full resupply of food, Tiffany and I were ready to hit the trail again. We got a ride to the Devils Slide TH from another trail angel. He specifically said he did not accept donations. He considers every ride a pebble in his pocket. He only hopes we carry out the ripple effect when we are done with the trail.
We hiked back up to the PCT with Gumby and Mark from Maine. The conversation was great and made the climb out of Idyllwild go by fast. At the PCT junction we said farewell to those two who were continuing over the pass. We continued on with another hiker, Packman up the ridge line. I think I already mentioned that he was carrying a ridiculously heavy bag.
We continued to climb up and up until we got up and over Fuller Ridge. After Fuller ridge it is down and down and down. People had talked about how bad this decent was. At first we laughed about this. It didn't seem so bad. Then we started the bad part. The trail becomes sandy and rocky and very degraded in areas. As the sun disappeared over the ridge we started looking for camping spots. We found one at mile 197, but after trying to keep our tent up against the ferocious winds we gave up, packed our bags and pushed on. The continuous downhill on our bodies and already being tired from the morning climbing was trying. Once it got dark our slowing pace became even slower. We passed a mile 200 marker in the dark. Disappointing though because we thought we had already made it that far. One thing to note about our decent was the change in temperature. We started in the high alpine forest and descended toward the desert floor. At the top the wind was chilly, toward the bottom the winds was a rush of hot air.
Finally around 9:30pm we found a relatively flat spot with only a light breeze somewhere between mile 202 and 203. Another 25 mile day we did not plan for.
On day 14 we finished the downhill. We think we were closer to mile 203 because we didn't have much downhill left. Once on the flat part we walked a gentle downhill to the lowest point on the PCT in California. This is a desert valley that by 9:30 in the morning was already creeping towards roasting temperatures.
Crossing the valley we ran into an oddity I have never seen before, a flagger for the trail. Serious? Yes, they were doing some work on overhead power lines and they had a flagger at a trail/road crossing out to control the flow of foot traffic on the trail. We walked up, and he said, your good to go and radioed to the crew we were passing through.
Despite the heat we were lucky enough to be passing by a well know trail angel house, Ziggy and The Bear. ZiggyBear's is truly a hiker oasis in the desert. I won't go into too much details as Tiffany does a good job of explaining what is there in her blog.
As the sun was setting and the temperatures finally came below 100 we hiked out of Ziggy Bears. The majority of the hiking was in the dark by headlamp.
Coming down into a narrow valley in the dark we heard this strange sound. At first it sounded like a cow in distress, then it sounded like, I don't know what. We couldn't find it with our lights. We had a moment of panic with lord knows what kind of wild thoughts running through our heads. We ran back up the valley side a couple switchbacks, got our breath and started to think of what to do. A minute later Lorax came around the bend. We had him listen to the sound. He also determined it was probably a cow in distress. With this extra bit of confidence it was only a cow, the three of us headed back down into the valley. We cautiously made our way as we didn't want to startle the cow or other possible creature if it was near the trail. Turns out there was a heard of cows over the other bank. Yay, we didn't have to go through them and with the adrenaline fueling us, we distanced ourselves from the evil cows fast!
As it turns out one of my battery terminals is corroding and my light is not so bright. It was still light enough to find one of the flattest camp spots in Mission creek valley floor though. It is so nice not to be sliding into Tiffany or vice versa.
After getting water we started a day of climbing. We went over a couple ridges, then we followed the Mission creek drainage up and up crossing it multiple times. We saw only a handful of hikers compared to what we were used to. Originally we only planned to go 15 miles, but the camp spot was not what we thought it was going to be so we hiked for another 4. After a day of climbing we were very tired and slept well at 7,000 ft. The only exception was a couple hikers that strolled into camp near middle of the night from night hiking.
Day 16 we were determined to have an easy day. We finished climbing to 8,000 ft, then the rest was gently rolling and downhill. I was glad for an easy 17 miles as I was not feeling so good. I am not sure if I was wiped from all the climbing the day before or caught a bug or both. At any rate it wasn't so debilitating I couldn't keep hiking. This stretch of trail seemed to be full of trail magic. First a cache of water and soda from Papa Smurf, then the couch and cooler of goodies provided by the big bear hostel. See Tiffany's post for a picture of the couch cache. At the couch cache we also ran into a trail angel Tiffany who we got a ride from later.
We successfully made a short day and got into camp at an early 4:30 and enjoyed resting. Yay!
We woke early to hopefully get to Big Bear by the afternoon. We had a lot of chores lined up. Aside from the regular resupply shopping I needed to get new socks and a new sun shirt as I managed to put holes through these already. I also needed to pick up my pants that got mailed to the hostel.
To get into Big Bear we got a ride from the trail angel Tiffany we met the day before. Not only did she pick us up, she let us stay in her spare bedroom, shower, do laundry, drove us all around to do our chores and shop for resupply. Thank you Tiffany!
We had some hole in the wall Mexican food and a couple good beers and were in bed by hiker midnight (8pm).
We are once again full and ready to hit the trail again tomorrow.
A couple trail comments/ questions: As Tiffany has posted, "we" have seen 9 snakes. Why is it that I, the person terrified of these nasty creatures, is always in front when we encounter these things? Note that Tiffany has been lucky enough to only see 5 out of these 9.
Do they make a long sleeve Hawaiian shirt?
And finally Tiffany says people might not get my "steel" thighs humor in the previous post. For those that didn't get it, it was a joke.
Trail Statistics
Mile: 268
Days: 18
Body: Strong Legs, Tired Feet
Candy Bars: 7
Bags of Chips: 3
Jars of Peanut Butter: 1 (Shared)
Showers: 5 (4 with soap)
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