5/29/2023
Section: Mile post 165.8 to 179.4
Distance: 17.31 Miles
Moving Time: 08:47 hrs
Elevation Gain: 6,729 ft
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Look at that altitude gain… just look at it. That was brutal. If you consider every 1000 feet is equal to a mile this was our hardest day. Add in the crazy amount of blow-down across the trail and it definitely was. Today’s stage took us higher on the north-south spine running up to Mt. Jacinto. The trail, while poorly maintained this early in the season, is a masterpiece - no doubt about that. It spends most of the day jumping across the spine and winding up higher and higher before ultimately dropping down to Saddle Junction where an access trail delivered us to Humber Park at the northern boundary of Idyllwild. The scenery becomes something you would expect to see in Yosemite, which is a wonder this far south in California. Rocky and gorgeous this area holds a promise of many incredible vistas yet to come in the Sierra.
We woke at 4, not wanting to repeat yesterday’s mistake. I actually woke up at 3 and then couldn’t get back to sleep. Where we had camped was surrounded by many dead trees and, while we were both convinced that the large boulder would shield us from the surrounding widowmakers, a strong wind had risen in the early hours of the morning and I was becoming less sure of our decision. At 3:45 I deflated my air mattress and Amanda followed suit about 10 minutes later. We were on the trail around 4:30 relishing the cool mountain air and not missing the hot sunlight.
We made our way across the saddle we had camped out of the way of the night before and started up the other side. The trail continued in a strong northern fashion. At the base of Apache peak we ran into a small group of guys just waking up and said hello to them as we rounded the eastern side. As we continued on, the trail wound ever up and up and we encountered more and more hikers that were obviously on the final day of their 3-day Memorial weekend holiday. We also encountered more and more downed trees across the trail. These trees required a number of acrobatic moves to avoid and go around, deviating from the typical soothing grade of the trail. These interruptions hampered any momentum built up on our approach to them and considerably slowed our day.
We wound higher and higher, continuing to overcome frequent fallen trees in the path. As the sun really started to warm the day I noticed a considerable increase of lizards out and about on the rocks which made me happy to see. The trail began to take on a carved look as if hewed out of the granite hillside. Exposure on our left and right side began to increase. “I can see why this section would have been tricky in the snow about a month ago,” I said to Amanda looking down into a deep gully that dropped precipitously from my vantage point on the trail.
We reached a notch at the top of a rise where the path passed through granite risers on each side and young Chris caught us. “Chris,” we yelled on seeing him. He smiled and we chatted for a while about the nature of the path and exposure. We all agreed it was a beautiful trail and he took off ahead, commenting on the altitude still to be gained. Amanda and I took a picture and continued on.
The elevation never seemed to let up. I looked at my watch and it said 4000 feet of gain and then looked down and it seemed to jump every time by steps of 500. Eventually we reached a set of switchbacks before rounding the nose of a ridge and hit our first snow patch. Just beyond it was the final saddle marking the end of the major climbing for the day. “Thank god,” Amanda remarked. We stopped beyond the snow patch to melt snow for water as we were close to out and still had 6 miles to go. The irony of this move was that, just 5 minutes later we crossed a beautiful running stream where we pumped additional water and had lunch. Here, Phillip caught up to us and we talked for a while. He said he was headed into Idylwild and would catch us there.
From the stream we descended a bit before climbing up the western flanks of Tahquitz peak. The trail here is a little frustrating because there seems to be no reason why it can’t cut across the basin below the peak and head straight to Saddle Junction and we were, admittedly, absolutely done with climbing but we committed to it and about 30 minutes of climbing brought us to the final high point of the day. As we navigated the final snow patch at the high point a number of rangers came around the corner and asked “Are you hiking the PCT? Are you the couple from Bellingham?” We smiled and said yes and asked how they had heard about us. They explained that they had talked to Don the day before and he had told them about us. We talked with them for a while about the fire which had decimated many of the trees in the area. I told them I wanted to see Max, the Golden Retriever Mayor of Idyllwild. They laughed and said that might be hard because he only came out on the weekends. After a while we said adieu, wanting to get on and finish the seemingly endless day.
We descended off the flanks of Tahquitz peak, glissading in a few spots over tenacious snowfields and eventually reached saddle junction. It was at this point I noticed a sharp pain growing in my calf muscle and at the junction I stole Amanda’s cork ball to massage it out. The massage gave me about 15 minutes of relief as we descended down to Humber Park on the Devil’s Slide trail. We switchbacked down loathing the elevation gain we were losing which we had worked so hard to accumulate all day. “It’s only 1600 feet, it will be fine” I kept telling myself. About a mile down I stopped to massage again and then Amanda and I ran into our first equestrian heading up.
Another 30 minutes brought us to the bottom, me hobbling after many attempts to massage my problems away. At the bottom we hitched a ride with a really nice local couple down further to the Idyllwild Inn where I had booked two nights for Amanda and I. We thanked the couple and forced 5 dollars on them for enduring our stench and ran inside to check in.
We got a small cabin where we cleaned up, continuing to be amazed at the amount of dirt that can accumulate on the human body, and dropped off a load of laundry at the office for cleaning. Afterwards we headed across the street to the Idylwild brewery everyone had been admint about us going to. I had a burger and Amanda had a chicken sandwich, both of which tasted like the best food we had ever had. Afterwards, barely able to keep our eyes open, we read for a while and passed out on a mattress that felt like heaven.
