Warner Springs was a pleasant break. I took a full zero there, hanging with friends, eating burritos, and, perhaps most importantly, I took a shower.
On the day it was time to hike out, I made plans with Matt and Shelby to meet them at Mike’s Place. We didn’t know much about Mike’s place other than that we could camp there and that there were dollar beers. That was enough to persuade me.
They left before I did that morning as I lounged around and lazily went to the post office and got a breakfast burrito before leaving.
I was packed up by late morning and figured If I hiked hard and fast I could make the 17.4 miles to Mike’s Place pretty quick and catch up with Matt and Shelby.
It was cool in Warner Springs and hiking out of the valley there into the hills led directly into the low lying clouds that obscured the tops of the mountains from view. It felt like nearly every training hike I’d done in Oregon with a cool breeze and moisture clinging to everything including my beard.
I powered through those miles with ease. At the six hour mark I checked my location to see that I’d gone exactly 17 miles.
As I rounded the hill I heard a familiar voice shout out, “Damn it! I was sure we were going to beat you!”
“Race you there!” I challenged back to Shelby.
Sign leading to Mike’s Place.
With that we embarked on the final stretch to Mike’s Place. A side trail with a handmade sign welcoming PCT hikers led us there.
As we wound our way there numerous things felt somewhat off. The property was strewn with old car parts and unidentifiable rusted pieces of metal. Were it not for periodic signs leading us toward the house I would have been sure we were in the wrong place.
We found our way down to the main property but saw no signs of other hikers. The house lacked any signs of people currently there and we heard nothing but the wind.
As we wandered around it looked more like a scene from Breaking Bad than a place we would find hikers.
An odd hiker poked her head out from a detached carport and invited us in. Lisa, along with two other Canadians, explained that they were hiding from the wind in the carport-turned-kitchen and that there were other hikers inside, high, watching Lord of the Rings. We figured it was best to stay outside for the time being.
Matt and I set about pitching our tents. As we finished a man in a collarless button down shirt, brown pants, and striped socks with no shoes walked out through the dirt. A large feline looking tail bounced along behind him.
“Hi I’m Strange,” he said introducing himself.
Matt quipped to me, “you don’t say.”
Strange explained to us that there were other hikers inside watching “the Original Animated Lord of the Rings” and that he’d normally make pizza but today was his day off. I wasn’t sure I really wanted pizza from that kitchen anyway.
As Strange went back inside we opted to head for the carport and make some dinner. Shelby expressed her reluctance to staying there but we decided to nonetheless.
Soliciting donations for beer that doesn’t exist.
After dinner I decided to poke around to satisfy my curiosity. I found shooting benches in the front lawn, days old food almost everywhere, a drum set on the porch with a broken snare, but no beers.
Shooting bench, tent, drum set.
I decided I should see what was inside. When I opened the door to the house I was hit by the musty smell of old tobacco. No lights were on but from the light of the front door I could see the wood paneling and some odd Native American artwork. To be clear, this was not artwork done by Native Americans but rather odd caricatures of Native Americans, similar to the kind one might find outside a tobacco shop decades ago. Down the hallway on a small bubble screened television played a cartoon. Presumably this was the Original Animated Lord of the Rings. I said hello to those on the couch before deciding I’d had enough.
I went back outside and went to bed.
I woke up after several hours to hear Strange explaining what he described as the “quantum mechanics of love” and how since “god is everything, and god is love, everything bad that happens in the world is because god loves you.” Fair enough I guess.
Later in the night Strange pulled out the laser Christmas lights for everyone to enjoy. I went back to bed looking forward to hiking out in the morning.
Clouds burn off as day heats up.
At first light I was packing up ready to leave. Matt and Shelby did the same, leaving that odd place as fast as we could. It’s not somewhere I would return.
The next day’s hiking was long, hot, and shadeless. It seemed to almost rebuke the previous day’s cool weather, issuing a stern reminder we were still in the desert.
Matt works his way through the desert during the heat of the day.
Not wanting to dry camp we set our sights on another trail angel’s place, Mary’s Oasis. After our time at Mike’s Place we were all a little on edge about what we would find.
Whitman, Muir, Thoreau, library.
Mary’s Oasis was everything Mike’s Place was not. If Mike’s Place had me feeling like I was staying at what could possibly be a meth lab, Mary’s Oasis made me feel as if I was at my English teacher’s house. A sign explaining that each year Mary picks a theme and this years theme was Walt Whitman welcomed us to the premises. Larger than life cutouts of Whitman, Muir, and Thoreau stood adjacent to the library that featured some of their seminal works as well as a variety of others.
We ate dinner on the picnic tables there and read Muir’s the Mountains of California. Mary came to visit along with her German Shorthaired Pointer. It was serene.
Chaparral and mountains. Pretty much encapsulates the desert.
From Mary’s Oasis the next day we hiked out towards the Paradise Valley Cafe for breakfast. Breakfast turned into a couple beers which turned into lunch. We spent almost the entire day there just hanging out enjoying the weather before hiking out late that afternoon. At the risk of making it seem like we didn’t do much that day we still managed to hike 10.5 miles that day even though we spent almost seven hours sitting around doing nothing.
A shady spot to camp and a whole lot of laziness.
That night at camp we had serious matters to discuss. 13.6 miles ahead of where we made camp was Apache Ridge. This stretch of trail had seen recent snow and was still in large part covered in snow. One specific part, Apache Ridge, had been giving hikers significant trouble. The northeast face is quite steep, features a large fall, and when snow covered, this traverse can be difficult. A week before a hiker was airlifted from here after a slipping and falling. I’m normally the fastest hiker in our group, now featuring Josh and Antoinette who had just shipped their microspikes ahead to Idyllwild, so it was decided that when I reached the snow I would relay back to them information on current conditions.
Endless switchbacks, San Jacinto in the distance.
The theme of the day was up and down. The entire morning was spent bouncing back and forth between 5100 and 7400. It was exhausting. By the time I got to where the now infamous snow was supposed to be there was a little patch of snow by the trail. Out of water at this point, which my cousin Susannah described as her “worst nightmare,” I decided to boil some snow and report back on the situation. A hiker by the name of Vader rounded the corner here as I decided I should mix some granola in with the water as it tasted terrible. I did not realize my worst nightmare was going to be right around the bend.
I debated whether or not to tell this next story because I didn’t want to come off as self aggrandizing and I also didn’t want to make any hikers look bad but I think it’s important for a couple reasons. First it’s a reminder of how important safety is—backcountry travel, especially when done in adverse conditions like snow, should also be done with a buddy or at the very minimum you should be in close contact with others who know where you are going and when you’ll be there. Second this is important because it is how I got my new trail name.
Twenty minutes or so go by after Vader passes me and I text, check Instagram and take in the views of Palm Springs and the rest of the valley far below me. After a while I decided enough time has passed and it’s time to hike on. I toss my pack on and start hiking. 25 feet later I see what all the fuss was about. The trail is completely covered in snow. I strap microspikes on, break down a trekking pole and pull the basket off, and begin to make my way slowly across the snow just like Hoosier Daddy showed me back at Scout and Frodo’s. Plant the trekking pole deep in the snow uphill, kick in one good step, kick in another good step, move the trekking pole, and so forth. It’s slow going but it’s rock solid.
Shelby and Matt hike in shallow snow on Apache Ridge.
I make it about 50 yards before I see Vader sitting there below the trail, clearly having slipped. She’s sitting there on her buttocks, both trekking poles in the snow, staring at Palm Springs some 7000 feet below.
“Hey there Vader, what’s crack-a-lackin?” I call out to her.
She responds in a shaky voice saying that she slipped. Well no duh I think. Otherwise you wouldn’t be sitting there like that now would you?
“Yeah I figured as much. What’s your plan?”
She explains that she intends to slide down to some trees 45 degrees off to her side, catch on to one of them, then use the SOS button on her GPS to call for help. I’ve heard better plans before.
“Why don’t we just get you out of here ourselves?” I suggest instead.
I talk her through kicking in steps from where she is as I kick in steps myself working my way down toward her. It’s a long, arduous process trying to get her to come uphill, partly because the snow is soft and also because her refusal to turn around makes things harder. Her insistance that she can’t use her legs doing nothing to help the matter. I’m sympathetic to what that must have been like but ultimately that didn’t make either of our lives any easier.
I remind her that her legs have carried her some 169 miles and that she can make it the several feet back to the trail at the point.
When she’s close enough I get a good grip of her pack and pull her onto the trail. Still clearly shaken after over an hour sitting out on the snow it takes us awhile to work our way back.
When we finally make it back to where I had my granola with no knowledge of what lay ahead, Josh and Antoinette and Matt and Shelby are there waiting. Before long Shelby had renamed me Superman.
Without their microspikes, Josh and Antoinette made the decision to hike back to the bailout a mile before and head down to Idyllwild with Vader. The rest of us proceed on.
We cruise through Apache Ridge. Having spent an hour and a half out there any fear of heights I had out there is now gone.
We come up with a plan to hike a few more miles to a campsite. When we get there we find it in an area totally burned out, no cover whatsoever, and howling winds. Without hesitation we decide to hike on even though its getting late.
Matt and Shelby hike by headlamp.
Several miles more hiking in the dark, bouncing from one side of the ridge to another, crossing more snow, and we finally made it to our next camp site. We find a number of other hikers there, all having already turned in for the night, and we get to pitching our tents. There’s no wind at this point so I don’t even bother putting rocks on my tent stakes.
Sitting down in my tent, I take off my socks and shoes, then my shirt, and pull out my food bag. All of a sudden a gust of wind comes along and my tent collapses on top of me.
In nothing but my shorts I roll out from underneath my tent and run to go find the biggest rocks I can. Carrying two at a time I run back and forth through the sand to my tent laying each rock across my stakes. Confident my tent will stand up I have a quick snack and fall asleep.
It isn’t long before I awake to my tent hitting me in the face. The wind is pounding my tent. Unclear if my tent has fallen over I poke my head out to see if the stakes are all still in the ground, they are. My concern shifts to the durability of the tent itself. Can it actually withstand winds like this without tearing? I resolve to worry about it in the morning and go back to sleep. For the next several hours I wake up every few minutes from my tent being whipped around in the wind.
At 4am I see that the same group of Canadians we met at Mike’s Place are now packing up. I signal to them that I’m coming with and pack up as fast as I can.
Lisa and René hike through the snow early as dawn breaks.
It isn’t long, maybe a hundred yards, before we’re putting microspikes back on. We’re all headed for town so at this point we’ll do anything it takes to get there, nothing can stop us. We spend the next couple hours slowly working our way across the snow lit only by the light of headlamps. Time seems to drag when moving across snow and being endlessly assaulted by the wind doesn’t help.
We make our way off the mountain and almost immediately catch a hitch into Idyllwild. Our driver gives us a tour of town including the most important information available—where the best breakfast is.
It certainly must be said of Idyllwild that it is the most welcoming place I have ever been. Standing on the street corner chatting, a man pulled up to us, rolled down his window and shouted “welcome to Idyllwild. Enjoy your stay!” A banner hanging across the town square welcomed PCT hikers into town. At the pizza shop photos of hikers from years past adorn the walls. At nearly ever turn people were offering to help in whatever way possible. When we needed a ride back to the trailhead the first car that approached stopped for us. Our driver, Laurie, told us she’d never picked anyone up before. She was a kindergarten teacher before she retired and was an absolutely pleasure. If I’m ever in the area again Idyllwild is on my list of places to visit.
Matt, Shelby, and I celebrate Smokey Bear’s birthday.
Our hike out of town was short and steep it started 5000 feet and climbed a quick 2000. Along the way we were stopped by a volunteer with the Forest Service who wanted to check out permits and spread information about wildfires. I told her about my Smokey the Bear themed birthday I had when I turned four.
After that we kept working our way up. Our goal for the day was the summit of San Jacinto. Soft snow and high elevation made for slow travel. We didn’t reach the shelter there until 5:40 pm. Inside we found one of the guys from Mike’s place smoking weed. I was pretty pissed off about it but it was too late in the day to head back down and try and find a campsite. We dropped our packs there then scurried the couple hundred yards up to the summit and checked that out before getting cold and heading back to the shelter for the night.
Me, freezing cold, atop San Jacinto.
Upon returning back to the shelter we found a small crowd. Myself, Matt, and Shelby included, nine people were now in the shelter. I knew that the three people we met at the summit were planning to stay there as well. For a building the size of a small bedroom twelve was going to be a tight fit.
A very crowded shelter on San Jacinto.
All night long cold air blew on me from a crack between the wall and the window. When I awoke in the morning my socks and shoes, wet from miles of hiking on semi melted snow the day before, were now frozen solid. It took a while to get them on my feet but as soon as I could we were off again.
San Jacinto sits some three miles off the PCT roughly at mile 181. The hike down was freezing cold and for much of it I could not feel my hands. Once back on the PCT we had about ten miles of snow before another area that had been giving hikers some trouble—Fuller Ridge.
A brief, snowless section of Fuller Ridge with San Jacinto watching over us.
Fuller Ridge is a three mile section of the PCT coming down from San Jacinto with steep switchbacks that are currently entirely buried by snow. Downed trees and large boulders don’t make the trip much easier. Frustrated by the seemingly endless snow we silently hiked down.
From the San Jacinto Summit around mile 181 to mile 209 where the PCT crosses under I-10 it’s almost all down hill. The elevation of I-10 is 1341 feet so it’s about 9500 feet down. Personally I cannot stand hiking downhill. It’s slow going and it beats up on my patellar tendons. There’s really nothing little worse in my opinion. So a day that’s defined by hiking downhill on snow and then just downhill is my least favorite way of hiking. The wildflowers in the afternoon made it a little better but it really wasn’t my favorite day.
Wildflowers and San Jacinto
But alas the trail provides. The next day I finished the nine miles to I-10 pretty quickly where I again found Josh and Antoinette as well as Roadrunner and Hot Ice, a pair of English hikers I hadn’t seen since Warner Springs. Someone had left a case of Natty Lights in a cooler with ice so Josh and I had a beer together before I caught a ride to In-N-Out in Cabazon.
A dirty, lonely hiker surrounded by my fashion forward peers headed towards Coachella I must have surely stuck out. I ordered one double double to eat then and two for later. After that I walked over to Hadley’s Fruit Orchard where I bought a date shake and did the rest of my resupply. Less than an hour elapsed and I was back on trail.
Mesa Wind Farm
Several miles after the freeway I caught up with some hikers at the Mesa Wind Farm. Employees of the wind farm had a cooler filled with homegrown grapefruit and partially frozen water bottles. It was just another act of generosity that seems to surround me while out on the trail. I enjoyed my grapefruit as I hid from the mid afternoon sun.
A nice little break like that makes the final miles of the day so much easier. I breezed forward and again found Josh and Antoinette at the Whitewater River. It was such a nice evening I didn’t even bother pitching my tent, I just cowboy camped right there in the sand.
The Whitewater River, where my feet got wet, just moments before I got lost heading towards those mountains.
The next morning I just woke up, packed my stuff up, and started hiking. The largest water crossing in Southern California started my morning after a little less than a mile. I immediately got turned around in the sand. I hiked about a half mile off trail until I realized I was lost then had to work my way back. Winding my way up a draw I was getting a little hungry so I parked it when I found a little lookout with an incredible view looking back on where I’d just come from. As I sat there eating my pita, avocado, and tuna, I decided I should put some things back in my pack. I turned around and in doing so caught my tent with my elbow and sent it flying. I sprinted down the trail as it bounced over switch backs, farther and farther down the steep slope I’d just worked my way up. It was frustrating but how can you really get upset when you have breakfast in the early morning with incredible views?
Where I had breakfast and nearly lost my tent.
I got to Mission Creek early that morning. The PCT follows Mission Creek Canyon for about twelve miles. What I didn’t know is that there are few trail markers there and more of the trail has been washed out than not. It was a grueling afternoon of getting lost, wandering around the large rocks that are strewn about the creek bed, seemingly endless stream crossings, and seeing more snakes than I would have preferred to. It was all too common to find a quarter mile of trail only to have it end abruptly at a fifteen foot cliff with no sign of where it picked up. Miles like that are so much more work than normal trail miles.
ADL in one of too many river crossing at Mission Creek.
The next day I planned to hike 25.9 miles. Running low on food and ready for a shower I wanted to be able to hike into Big Bear the next morning. I packed up from camp at mile 239.9 and set out. Eight miles in, I stopped for my first snack. Three dates and a handful of nuts and seeds later I was back on the trail.
Creek leading out towards Coachella Valley.
One hundred feet short of the 250 mile marker I found an older man sitting next to the trail. We chatted just long enough to exchange names before I continued on.
I hiked another five miles before I saw Danimal again. It was just after 11 am and I’d plopped down on an odd couch in the forest. There was an old dumpster there with “magic” painted on it. Seconds after arriving there I met a couple guys who had come to retrieve both couch and dumpster. Grayson, owner of the hostel in town, explained to me that he used to do trail magic here until the fires a couple years ago. After that the Forest Service gated the road thus making it impossible for him to get his truck out there. They’d just recently been able to borrow a key to retreive Grayson’s property. Moments after this conversation Danimal caught up with us. Together we moved the dumpster into Grayson’s trailer.
Couch and dumpster that used to house trail magic.
Grayson went into his truck to see if he had any food or anything we might want. The only thing he could find was a bag of hard candies. With only one salmon filet and five dates left I readily accepted.
From there on Danimal and I hit it. We were unstoppable together. Chit chatting all along as I munched on hard candies, we crushed miles. With Danimal I got twenty miles by 1:45. It was nice having someone to fly with for a while. He is also a photographer, specializing in nature photography, and up until his recent retirement was a professor. I guess that means he should really be Professor Danimal? Anyway together we were closing in on thirty miles by 3:45.
Danimal admires the desert to the east.
He hitched into town and I carried on for another few hours. Yesterday was a personal record day for me by quite a few miles. I finished with 33.1 miles, a good bit farther than I expected but it was one of those moments when you realize you’re capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for most of the time.
An oddity of the trail is the nature of friendships on the trail. Danimal and I were great friends for a day. I got to know all about his family and have deep philosophical conversations. We worked hard for a few hours together, but I said goodbye to him and it’s quite possible, probable even, that I’ll never see him again. Ultimately I only have a trailname for him, and though his happens to suggest what his real name might be, no real contact information from him. We got to a road said goodbyes; just as quickly as our friendship began it was over. Maybe I’ll see him again but as I sit here in Big Bear trying to kill time I know every minute here makes it more and more unlikely that our paths will cross. It’s an interesting situation to exist in where every time you say goodbye to someone there’s a significant chance it’s the last time you see them. Of course it’s always a possibility in the real world but on the trail it’s far more common. Almost every day there’s a new person I befriend that I never see again. Certainly there are the recurring figures that turn up at every town but those are anomalous. For me personally it makes me value the minutes that I get with a person because that may be all I ever get.
As I write this from Big Bear, CA I appreciate all of your support more than you know. I hope you all are doing well and living life to the fullest, whatever that may mean to each of you individually, back home. Keep it real.