Day 18- May 7th

The PCT roller coaster strikes again! This time in the best way! So if you read yesterday's blog entry, you know that yesterday was a really low point for us. Frustrated, wet, and cold. Today we were only one of those things! :) 

We woke up at about 5, I had to charge my phone for a few hours because I drained my battery poring over my misery in the wet tent and then venting to you guys on the blog. It was very cold but we were pretty dry in the tent. The tent itself and the Tyvek ground sheet were the wettest they've been.

We figured we'd head out nice and early and start hiking a much longer trail that cuts below the PCT, joining the Black Mountain Road alternate road and avoiding a potentially scary and icy and dangerous ridge. 

Finally after trying to dry out the tent in the 30 degree weather, we were ready to leave shortly before 8. We figured we'd stop by the Rangers station and try and get a storm update because they open at 8.

We talked to the ranger alright. He scared us to death with his information. According to him there were waist-deep snow drifts and icy area up on all parts of the mountain, even the lower trail that we were planning on taking. He STRONGLY suggested that we hitchhike 8.2 miles out on Highway 243 to get to Black Mountain Road, instead of going up the mountain. 

We left feeling really bummed. We weren't going to hitch, yet didn't feel like walking on a little curvy two lane highway with no shoulder for 8 miles. 

Orion was at the ranger station at the same time, so we decided to head out together. After walking half a mile on highway 243 on a wide shouldered stretch, we came across Deer Springs Trail. Looking at my maps, and really not wanting to walk on the Highway, I asked for a consensus. 

We decided to start walking up Deer Springs Trail to meet the PCT, and if things got dicy or icy, we'd stay on the low trail as per our original plan. If things got dicy BEFORE the low trail, we'd go back down out of the snow and then re-strategize. At least we weren't gonna be sitting around in Idyllwild twiddling our thumbs! 

Rain was forecasted for 11am, and although it got increasingly colder, no rain came. We went up and up and up, up all day. We saw many day hikers coming down and even people running in shorts from up the trail. All of us started to doubt the Ranger from this morning. 

A few miles in we saw "Lopsided", who we had met last night at the Idyllwild Campground, he started on the same night as us but in Idyllwild was the first time we ever saw him! Crazy huh? He decided to join our group of three as he didn't have a plan for the snow. His phone had died and he lost his gloves. He had camped out on Deer Spring Trail, and it had snowed on him a lot last night.

We FINALLY hit snow, between 7000 and 8000 ft, WAY after the ranger said we'd hit snow. I'm not ragging on him or anything, but he was seriously trying to keep us off that mountain.

The terrain was beautiful, huge boulders dusted with new snow, and instead of raining, the light was shining through! 

We eventually joined the PCT, (decided that the lower trail was not needed, and we had soon climbed up to the point where Fuller Ridge (the theoretically waist deep sketchy exposed icy ridge), branches down.

Maybe waist deep for a bunny rabbit...

We were already at 9000 ft, just under 2000 below the summit of Mount Jacinto! Something we thought earlier in the day would be impossible to reach!

It was only noon, and the snow was only a couple inches deep. I knew that there was a cool stone shelter up near the summit. And we were only 3 miles from it. The pathway was clear and it looked like many people had been in front of us already.

The trail up to the summit was in a steep area, but on a well graded area, if that made sense. Basically there weren't any crazy drops around or icy patches or wind exposed ridges. It never rained on us, and we saw the most beautiful terrain so far!

It was a long hard switchbacks climb, but soon we hit this sign. 

0.3 to go!!

Then we saw it. The most beautiful sight ever! 

Our home for the night!

It was 20 degrees and dropping, so we were very happy to get in the cabin and start cooking some food! One round of mashed potatoes, and then two rounds of hot ramen, chee!

We rolled up to the cabin before 4, but it's so cold up here that we got into or sleeping bags right after dinner. There are four bunks in here and it's actually quite cozy in our bags! There used to be a fireplace but it got cemented over some years ago, the cabin was built in 1933!

After dinner we all talked for a few hours about childhood and life and swapping good stories. Definitely the most social we've been on the trail yet.

Lopsided telling a story

We're only about 0.2 miles from the top, but as there were some clouds a brewing as we got to the cabin, we are going to summit tomorrow morning. We did just over 10 miles today, straight uphill!

Looking Northeast from just below the cabin.

At around 8:30 tonight as I was typing this entry, someone named Manny came in looking for someone named Josh. They had gotten split up somehow near the summit at sunset, and now Josh was out lost in the cold. We heard Manny yelling his name for about 10 minutes outside, and finally they both safely returned. They are sleeping on the ground as there are no more bunks, but no one is wet or too cold! 

Just a final little note: things work out in life. They always do. Even if you have a crappy day or a few of them. Everyone left such nice comments on yesterday's blog, and today everything that we thought we wouldn't be able to do, we did! And we were blessed with great weather throughout! Thanks for all the support everyone, and 

-Thanks for reading!