Day 14! 22.70 miles!!!

WOW WOW WOW WOW today was so long and beautiful and tiring and amazing and did I say long? Today I set three new personal records!!!

Alright, the first was wake up and departure time. Granted this was a little easier since I slept in a bed and didn’t have a tent to put away in the morning. But still, I impressed myself!

I was planning on waking up at 5:30am, instead I woke up at 4:30am and couldn’t go back to sleep! (Probably thanks to my two hour nap yesterday, haha) I hit my pack together as quickly but as quietly as I could without disturbing Shadow too much and I was out of the door by 5:30am! That’s record one.

I began walking through Idyllwild in the morning glow. I headed out on Highway 243 towards Deer Springs trailhead. It was just about a mile road walk uphill and went by quickly. I started up Deer Springs trail towards Strawberry Junction and the PCT. man, I forgot how steep that trail is! 

I soon got hungry and realized I left my honey crisp apple and cheese in the fridge back at the Idyllwild Inn! Nooooooo!! Well, too late to go back now... The sunrise was beautiful from the trail, the first picture on this blog entry was from the climb.

Speaking of pictures, I have about 25 pictures that I’m about to include in this post since today was so beautiful. Beware.. haha. I was expecting a lot of snow but actually didn’t see much snow on the ground until above 7000 feet!

Beautiful Manzanita 

Some strange mushroom or early plant?

Just after sunrise 

The terrain was simply amazing! Idyllwild is already pretty high up, so the more I climbed the bigger and bigger the trees became and the more huge boulders and granite stones started appearing. Soon, I came up on the North Fork San Jacinto River. The last water source for almost 20 miles! It was so ice cold and fresh. Since I knew I’d be moving quickly and it was still very cold up top, I took just 3 liters.

Alright, second personal record! Today I did my first 10 by 10 (or 10x10) That’s a term used by some hikers when they do their first 10 miles by 10am! As you can imagine, you need to start pretty early to get this done. I’m actually super surprised that I did one today! Reason: in my first 10 miles, I had already climbed 3,500ft and descended 1,300ft!! It was a steep climb in the morning, but I felt so rejuvenated from the zero day yesterday that I just let my body do what it felt like it could!

10x10 celebration selfie, San Jacinto summit in back

Lots of panos today

If someone could, please comment to let me know if the panorama photos show up in high quality on the computer. I realized that I only see them on the phone, and I hope they’re not shrinking size/quality when I upload them. Thanks! 

I went waaaaaay up, and then started going waaaaaaay down! I must’ve blinked and missed Fuller Ridge, the most notorious and dangerous part of San Jacinto. Like I said earlier, it didn’t really snow as much up here as was predicted! I maybe walked in snow for a total on a 1/4 of a mile.

Mass destruction

Looking down into the valley and interstate 10. Big bear area way up behind in the clouds...

Guess what? I pulled off this shot with just that standard 10 second timer on my iPhone!

 (Carefully utilizing my trekking pole strap to secure it against a rock)


Trail where?!

It’s crazy how it went from so cold this morning with snow and frost on the ground up high, and then transitions into the desert floor in a crazy 20 mile descent, with large trees slowly backing away and the standard desert plants and shrubs coming back in full force. About 7 miles into the descent, I found a seeet spot with some shade to take a break! 

My break spot featuring San Jacinto

Left my mark with all these pinecones!

Also, for those of you who don’t know, my trail-name is Two-Pack. Most people get a trailnsme after hiking awhile once something unique or memorable happens to them or a unique characteristic of theirs develops over time into a trail-name. Your trail name must be given to you by another hiker or trail angel! I’ll tell you the story of how I got Two-Pack, and how Claire got Bee’s Knees back in 2016. TOMORROW! :) it just so happens that I’m going to pass the place where our names were given to us early tomorow morning!

Crazy trail! 

From San Jacinto Summit down to the Snow Canyon water faucet, it’s only about 5 miles as the crow flies... on the PCT, it’s over 20 miles! 19.5 of those miles is dry.. No water from that awesome water source I collected from today, and the Snow Canyon water faucet, waaaaaaaaaay down on the desert floor..

Dropping down!

Got to practice my log walking! 

(Balance is suffering a bit on trail)

And down some more!

Julian eventually caught up to me. He had left the Idyllwild Inn about a 1/2 hour after me, but I think he didn’t take a longer break, and I also lost some time trying to take that 10 second timer photo! Goaltech, who Claire and I met on trail in 2016, has suggested a cool timer app to allow for more than 10 seconds, but I forgot to download it when I had WiFi in Idyllwild. It’s hard to get pictures of myself when there’s no one else around me! Anyways I digress...

Julian and I hiked together until camp, and we passed the 200 mm today!! :) it wasn’t even 5:00pm yet when we found this amazing campsite with a nice view of San Jacinto.. since we had already hiked 22 miles our feet told us it was time to stop “early.”

Tonight’s bed :)

Speaking of which, that’s my third personal best! 22.70 miles today!! This is my best on this attempt, but I believe Claire and I had two or three days greater than this mileage in 2016. The reason why I’m so stoked about this accomplishment, is that it was a really hard and long day and I feel pretty great as I lay here blogging! Today I climbed 4,000ft and descended close to 7,000!! This is all with 5 days of food and 3 liters of water!! 

That’s Joseph’s tent in the corner, he arrived about 10 minutes after Julian and I

It got prettier and prettier here as time went on, but since it’s 7:40pm, I gotta get ready for bed! I can here the occasional hummingbird drinking from flowers nearby.. it’s quite soothing. Since it seems like everyone left from Idyllwild today, there has been three more groups who have arrived after Julian, Joseph and I. Since they came in later they are all still up talking and I feel like I want to get out and shake my trekking pole at them and say “Don’t you know what time it is for crying out loud!!” Haha.

I’m sure I’ll fall asleep soon anyhow. We are planning on waking up super early again tomorow, since there is a killer bee hive about 1.5 miles further down trail, (yes I said killer bees) and it’s best to past it either in the cool evening or quiet early morning, before many other people have disturbed them. It looks like it’s a race between the ~9 of us here to get past it first! Last one there gets stung a bunch! Ouch!

You might not see this for 4 or 5 days, but as always,

Thanks for reading!