Look up across the creek!” I wake to the Maurice excitedly saying. I peer out my tent flap-a gigantic mother Turkey and her babies are making their way down to the water’s edge. “No tools to get dinner with,” Maurice jokes.
We pack up and head down the trail. The fields continue, different today because there is a marine layer of clouds that give the view a beautiful cast. Black cows dot the landscape.
Moody weather.
I finally drop down towards the town of Warner Springs and we take a side trail into town. We head to the post office and I forward my food box on to Bishop-I don’t need nearly as much food as I sent in this box and I don’t want to just leave it in the hiker box.
Next I head to the gas station and buy about 2,5 days worth of food, and 1 ice cream sandwich. I sit against the outside of the gas station with a few other hikers-some of whom I don’t know-and Maurice eyes my ice cream sandwich.
“I haven’t had one of those in about 45 years!”
He goes and buys one and his face splits into a huge grin. It is this aspect of hiking that I think is irreplaceable in all but the most extreme backcountry sports-the way that your pleasure centers are in effect “reset” and simple joys become huge. It’s not just another ice cream sandwich-it’s the BEST ice cream sandwich you’ve ever had.
Maurice’s Achilles tendon is sore and swollen. He decides to take a few days off from hiking and meet us in Idyllwild. I think this is extremely wise-better to let it rest and heal before it turns into a full-blown issue. Aiden and I accept a ride the one mile back to the trail from trail Angel Sherrie, who pulled up in a converted decommissioned ambulance and asked us if we needed anything. We hike about ten more miles through the afternoon.
The trail winds through several abandoned campgrounds, which strike me as creepy in the sleepy afternoon sun. Finally it starts to climb up in elevation into the Cleveland National forest. I drop down in the evening to Lost Valley Spring and find Aiden camped near the water. The temperature drops precipitously once the sun goes down-it’s supposed to rain again tonight, maybe. I hiked 14.8 miles today, the 8th day on trail.
It rains in the night. Loud drops hit my tent, and the wind blows-I half wake up and put ear plugs in. I wake up fully at 6:30, a little later than usual. Everything feels just a little damp, and the tent is of course soaked. Hopefully there’s an opportunity to dry things out later today.
Aiden takes off about 10 minutes before me. I climb back out of Lost Valley Spring trail and immediately run into the Belgian couple. We talk about the water sources up ahead-a lot of the sources marked as seasonal springs in the FarOut app are dry. There is a trail Angel named Mike Herrera that lives about 7.5 miles from here and maintains a water tank for the hikers. That seems like the next reliable source.
I continue on down the trail, which winds gently up here. There is a big cloud sitting on this area, and the trail peaks in and out of thick mist.
2023, the winter that just won't quit.
A few hours later, I come upon a surprise little creek-about seven hikers are sitting along both sides of it.
“Mike’s tank is empty. You have to get water here,” someone tells me. I sit down and have some lunch. The Belgian couple is amazed by the little tuna salad-on-crackers kit that I picked up at the Warner Springs game station. “That’s like something you would eat at a party!” Says Victor. It’s funny how anything not explicitly hiking food seems way more exciting, all of a sudden. I make a cracker for them and they split it.
I continue on. The weather finally starts improve. It is sunny, cold, and windy, then warmer and warmer as the afternoon progresses.
Sunshine and real desert hiking.
The triangle blister on the bottom of my left foot is growing. I think it’s affecting my gait, and by the late afternoon I start to feel my old Achilles injury in my left foot. Not great. I finally reach the water source at 7:15 pm, which is marked as “concrete cistern” on the app but I remember used to be called, for unknown reasons, “The Guzzler.” On the old water report that they used to print out and hand out to the hikers, the entry was simply “mile 139.5- The Guzzler.” We didn’t know what that meant until we arrived (and it still isn’t clear why it’s called that.)
The concrete tank is broken on top, and I carefully lean over the top and dip a bottle into the opaque dark water. When I bring up the bottle, I can see hundreds of little red larvae frantically swimming around. But there isn’t any water else than this, so I fill my bag with 2 liters.
I find the Belgians camped below the cistern. “I don’t think you should drink that water,” Aurelie says. I find a spot next to them and set up my tent. I filter the water, and then boil it too, just in case. I hiked 20.3 miles today, the 9th day on trail.
A peaceful desert camp.
The Belgians leave early in the morning. I enjoy my hot tea and slowly pack up-the desert finally feels like the desert again to me-little birds chirping, warm sun, and I heard a pack of coyotes yipping last night. I start hiking at about 7:45.
There is a group of four young hikers who all look the same, hiking around me this morning. Same gear, same clothing style, same ages. We all stop at Mary’s place 6 miles in, which is a trail Angel with a large water tank, picnic tables, and shade. The other hikers are talking about how they just didn’t drink any water yesterday afternoon and this morning to avoid having to drink the water from the cistern. One fellow walked down to the dirt road and asked random people driving by for water. I laugh inwardly to myself that these hikers should probably get more experience before attempting the CDT-the water sources on that trail are 10 times worse.
I hike the final six miles to the road to Paradise Valley Cafe, an iconic hiker stop in the desert. An incredibly kind older man named Stack-Attack drives me in his van the one mile to the cafe. I find Aiden there, and we eat lunch, then head into Idyllwild. We get a hitch with a trail maintainer named Kenneth, who tells us there are 150 downed trees in a 4 mile section of trail up on Jacinto. Well, that’s a problem for another day.
We make our way to Idyllwild Inn and find Maurice, happily settled into a cabin. He’s had a few days of rest and also saw Blaze Physio, the mobile physical therapist for hikers who drives up and down the trail in SoCal. She taped his Achilles and gave him strengthening exercises. He’s feeling much more confident about his hike now.
We go to dinner and to bed early. I hiked 12.3 miles today, my 11th day on trail.
I zero today. Day 12 on trail. Alex got in today and joined us in the cabin. He actually managed to carry a bottle of the Guzzler water with him-we were delighted and horrified to find that its inhabitants were still happily swimming around.
Alex, fearless in the face of the Guzzler water.
We get up and have a slow breakfast at the cabin, then pack up and start the process of hitchhiking back to the trailhead at Paradise Valley Cafe. We get picked up in 5 minutes by a hilarious retired tech worker who tells us a lot of stories from his life. Sometimes, you get the sense that people pick you up because they want someone to listen to them-and we of course oblige.
We start hiking at about 11am. It’s very hot and sunny. We stop at a stream 3 miles in and spend about 1.5 hours there waiting out the heat. I pull out my sun umbrella and attach it to my pack using the Z Packs mounting system that I purchased, which ends up working great. We continue the 2,000 foot climb up towards San Jacinto.
In the late afternoon I meet two male thru hikers that I’ve never seen before. “What day did you start?” I ask them.
“May 8th.”
I do a double take. We are at about mile 160 on the PCT. “…..6 days ago? Are you guys doing 30s?”
“Mostly 26s and 27s.”
“Cool! Well, nice to meet you but I’ll never see you again,” I say, only half-joking.
“Well, we’re going to zero in Idyllwild.”
Well, I’ll see them one more time, when they pass me again on Fuller Ridge, I think.
I continue on up the hill. The trail turns into a spectacular ridge walk with mind-blowing views of the Coachella Valley.
Beautiful evening ridgewalk.
Finally in the evening I reach the Cedar Spring trail turnoff and begin the 1 mile down to this spring and camp. There is very little water up here, so we need to walk a mile off trail to a reliable source.
When I arrive, I hear lots of talking and laughing. There are about 10 hikers here, including some folks we started with but haven’t seen in a long time-Carolyn from Denmark, and Jamie. I have a good time chatting with all of them as I eat my dinner, and it grows dark. I finally settle into my tent at 9 pm. I hiked 11.2 miles today, my 13th day on trail.
I get moving at about 8 as usual. By this time, almost everyone else is already gone. I climb the 350 feet back out of Cedar Glen Camp. The trail immediately begins its 2500 foot climb towards San Jacinto. It is getting hotter as I climb, and the grade is steep, and there are a lot of blowdowns. I stop for a brief break at a saddle-Maurice comes up the trail a minute later. “Where’s a nurse when you need one?” He says. His leg is bleeding-he had fallen over a blowdown. I treat it the best I can with antiseptics and Neosporin. We take a break under my Mylar/Tyvek sunshade. I fall asleep for 20 minutes-but am jolted awake when a hummingbird mistakes my pink sunglasses for a flower and flies directly at my face.
We continue on. This is the part of the trail that our hitch from a few days ago was talking about-there are dozens of blowdowns that we climb over, and parts of the trail are washed out.
Sketchy trail.
Jaw-dropping views, along with the hard work.
The trail morphs into a spectacular ridge walk. We are picking our way along. We finally roll into a sandy saddle, exhausted, at 7 pm. I remember this section from 11 years ago-it was a pleasant walk along a ridge, not too hard or stressful. This winter’s storms have wreaked havoc on Mount San Jacinto.
Blow-down maze. Each one is a new challenge!
There are about 7 people already at the camp, including some weekend hikers. It’s pleasant to camp in a group, and Caroline and Jamie are here as well-but they plan to drop down to Idyllwild via Saddle Junction tomorrow-we won’t see them for a few days. I hiked 14.2 miles today, my 14th day on trail.
I leave the campsite with Maurice at about 8 am. The trail crosses a few more blowdowns, then almost immediately becomes snow-covered. We stop about 30 minutes in to put our micro spikes on. They stay on for the rest of the day.
It’s hard, slow work. Huge berms of snow rise in front of us, That we constantly have to climb up, then down the other side. At 11:30, we finally make it to Saddle Junction-where we had planned to camp the previous night. A large group of hikers is there, eating lunch. It seems like most people plan to drop back down to Idyllwild here. We carry on.
Mercifully, the next 1000 foot climb out of Saddle Junction is completely dry, until maybe the final 100 feet. The trail is completely snow covered again at the junction to climb Jacinto, which is where Alex had been planning to camp the night before. I cannot believe that he did this all the day before. That is a different level of athleticism.
Sloggy, sloppy snow hiking on San Jacinto.
We continue on the PCT and the trail dries out again for about 3 miles, a huge mercy. Then the snow starts again. I get turned around in the late afternoon, following an erroneous set of footprints-and we end up 250 feet above the trail in steep manzanita that keeps postholing up to my hip every third step. Deep suffering. We finally get ourselves back on the route and, excruciatingly slowly, continue in the snow towards Fuller Ridge.
Maurice is tired. I am too. We pick our way down to the north fork of the San Jacinto river-and I do something I swear I’d never do again-I lose judgment for a water crossing.
The terrain is very steep, and the river is raging vertically down the mountain, with intermittent thin snow bridges covering it. Where we have been walking, tracks lead in the snow up to the edge, where there is a large block of granite, and tracks on the other side. It looks a little wide, but I think, “ I can do it.”
I approach the edge. Maurice says doubtfully, “I think that’s too much of a drop for you…” but I ignore him-I just need to get to the other side, I think. I sit down and drop onto the block. Then I realize my mistake. With the River thundering in my ears, I see that the opposite Boulder is too big, slippery and vertical for me to be able to scramble up onto the other side. I heave myself and place one foot on the opposite boulder so I am now stemming between the two, over the River. Then I feel the awful feeling of myself slipping, and I go into the water.
It isn’t very deep, or fast, thankfully-just very, very cold. Maurice tries to come down to help me, but I am panicking now, scrabbling against the granite with my micro spikes and slipping back into the water. Finally I override my panic, throw my poles up on the opposite bank, peel my microspikes off while still in the water, and heave my backpack up on the bank with Maurice’s help. Then I am able to clamber up the granite onto the snowy bank.
Maurice is struggling himself. I grab ahold of his backpack from above and he is able to wiggle out of it- then he clambers up the way I came. He is very calm. I’m not-I’m babbling and almost crying. We put our micro spikes on and continue another mile before we find a snow-free Sandy bench to camp.
Bad River-crossing decision making.
I’m embarrassed that I made such a dumb error. Looking at the FarOut app, someone mentions a snow bridge at the point we crossed on May 11th-it must have collapsed, but that would have been the tracks I saw. Like it is so easy to do, especially at the end of a long day, I had tunnel vision. I just felt like I had to get across no matter what. I take this as a relatively low-consequence reminder of this important lesson.
Our camp is beautiful. The sun sets, swallows swoop around us, and Palm Springs twinkles below. I am poignantly aware of how lucky I am tonight. I walked 11.9 miles in 11 hours of hiking today, the 15th day on trail.
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