April 19th, 2022 by Jon
I woke up around 5:00am, a little confused about where I was. It seemed so warm for a tent. That is, before I remembered I was in Palm Springs, enjoying some very nice R&R with Cathy and Phil. We slept in until 7:30 or so, and then moved to the living room, and Cathy let us make freshly squeezed grapefruit juice from the ones she collected this morning. They are so sweet they almost taste like orange juice. Ajia and I have started looking at accommodations in Idyllwild. We need to book a place to stay for Thursday and Friday nights so we can take a zero. Eventually, we found a small Airbnb that looked great, so that will be the plan.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs, a massive toast bar, bacon, sausage, and coffee. What a treat! We feel so supported, and it was nice to eat at a table. I took one more shower because I could, and then lounged on the couch for a while before we all got ready to leave around 10:30.
By 11:30, we had driven up out of the desert and arrived at the Paradise Valley Cafe, home of the self-proclaimed best burger on the PCT. We said our goodbyes and thanked Cathy for being so amazing, and she hugged us this time because we actually smelled good. Ha. Yay for laundry. We walked over to the cafe, and we saw some old friends we hadn’t seen since Julian! Woods, Reroute, and Don were all hanging out at a table. Apparently, they came for breakfast and then ordered lunch to go. The cafe itself has a spigot for hikers to fill their bottles with clean water and a lot of outlets all over the place for people to charge stuff. There were probably about 29 backpacks sitting out in front of the restaurant.
We went inside and got a table since all the outdoor seating was full, and before too long, we had burgers in front of us. They were very large and pretty good, but I do think there may be a bit of over-hype happening. I’m looking forward to trying more as we go up trail to compare it to. At the end, I tried to order a chocolate shake, but they said they couldn’t make it because there were too many people and not enough staff. I understood, but I was pretty sad. Ah well.
Nicole grabbed her package from the front of the store, where her dad had left it, and had a couple of goodies inside. There was so much tape on it that we felt bad opening it inside because of how loud it was and once we got outside I had to help her get it open. That sucker was very secure!
Bags packed and bellies very full, we walked underneath some power lines for a mile back to the PCT, which paralleled the highway. It’s definitely a lot safer than walking next to the road. We made it back to the trailhead where we had been picked up and started our trek headed towards Idyllwild. The trail meandered its way through brush and small trees as we listened to the wind rush all around us. We could vaguely tell we were making our way upward, but since we weren’t on a ridge, we couldn’t actually see anything. It was disorienting. Eventually, we hiked up some switchbacks and hiked along a tall rock wall about 200 feet tall. It felt like we were on a little shelf because every once in a while we would get a view of the valley below.
Finally, we started the climb we had known had been coming for a few days now: we were climbing the smaller peaks just south of Mt San Jacinto. Tomorrow we will really be on its flanks, climbing for real. But to give you some idea, the highway we just came from is at 4,900 feet, and we will be climbing up to 9,000 feet on the PCT, and potentially just over 10,000 if we end up actually doing a summit of San Jacinto, which would add 3 miles to our hike. The plan is still to do it… We think.
We climbed steeply over a few miles and as we did, dry pines started to pop up! How glorious was this shade! And the smell of pine filled the air. The wind had continued with gusto (see what I did there?!?) during our climb and I actually had to walk a little differently with a wider stance so I could stay balanced during the particularly strong gusts. We climbed higher and higher before finally getting behind a ridge and it was the opposite side from where the wind was blowing. It was like night and day. We could still hear the wind, but it wasn’t blowing on us anymore.
We climbed higher still and walked along a very steep ridge. As we walked sometimes the wind seemed to swirl over the ridge and came charging down at us from above. Finally, after about 8 miles of hiking, we arrived at a flat spot, sort of in the armpit of a mountain. The wind is very loud and constant, but we generally don’t feel a lot of it where we are camped. It’s pretty cold, though, and I’m writing this while it’s still light out. We will likely wear all our extra layers to bed tonight.
Tomorrow we plan to hike around 11 miles to a tent site and see how we feel. We can check in to our Airbnb until 3:00 on Thursday so it doesn’t make a ton of sense to hike our usual 15 tomorrow and 6 on Thursday morning. Unless we feel like hanging out in town for extra time which is a very real possibility. We will see what we decide.
