Big Bear – Idyllwild – Day 153 – Fri Nov 24th

Day 153 Fri Nov 24th
Tent site by water Faucet at foot of San Jacinco – Tent site 3
2449.5 – 2467.4
Approx. 7276 ft ascent 436 ft descent
17.9 Miles

Alarms went off at 05:00 and by 05:15 we were up and at em.
We have a big day today to even get to the top of San Jacinto. Let alone get to Idyllwild which is 26 miles away.

We slept without the fly sheet last night which allowed for great star gazing views. Although it generated a little more condensation on both our sleeping bags than we hoped.

As we packed up our kit we watched heavy clouds roll in over the mountains that we climbed down yesterday on our way to Cabazon.
We hope they keep on that side of the valley and don’t come anywhere near us today.
At this elevation rain clouds are most likely going to produce snow.

Our tent site is surrounded by grasses that look like small pampas grasses bushes.
Their fluffy heads bob and weave in the wind.
Sarah drops a small piece of her breakfast pop tart and a large beetle comes to investigate, claiming it as his now.
Sarah jokes that’ll keep him busy for the next couple of hours.

As we start to climb through the numerous switchbacks up San Jacinto the sun slowly pokes its nose over the mountain opposite.
It almost looks holy just before the full force of the sun’s rays pops over the silhouette of the mountains. Then becoming too much to look at and blinding.
It’s the kind of light you’d expect to see as you walk through the gates of heaven.
Or at least like the image that you might imagine.

Sarah is in a lot of pain today and doing her best to soldier on. She’s been mixing a combination of paracetamol and ibuprofen + is putting on a brave face, but I can see she’s in pain.

Last night we passed a tent pitched at the foot of the mountain, tucked away in the bushes.
It turned out to be Cam and Hoppy and they had been just behind us all this time, after we had last seen them at Cajon Pass.

The climb to the top of San Jacinto from where we camped was approx 7,000 feet, spread over 20 miles.

Cam had decided to camp at lower elevation because he wanted to try and do the full 10,000 feet in 1 day.
Although it sounds like the spot they picked was not well sheltered from the wind and their tent was buffeted by the wind for most of the night.

Whereas the tent site by the water faucet seemed nice and sheltered by the horseshoe shape of the mountains.

He also mentioned he had picked up a couple of tick bites in the last few days.
It seems like this is a real problem on this trail.
Yet there is little comms about this subject from the PCT association.
I think this is bad and irresponsible. If there was more information about this subject then hikers could come prepared with prevention methods. Or at least antibiotics just in case they get bitten etc.
The Appalachian Trail gets a really bad press for tick related issues and lymes disease. It seems only fair that the PCT should also be recognised as having similar issues.

Either side of the trail is clad with lime green thick leafed Yerba Santa. Smilar to when we left Hikertown. It has a similar aroma to Poodle dog bush, but it doesn’t cause any irritation.

We stop for lunch around 13:00. Luckily the sun came out from behind the clouds it had been shrouded by for the last few hours. It gave us a brief window and the opportunity to dry out our damp sleeping bags.

We cooked up some refried beans jazzed up some teriyaki jerky. Delicious.
Sarah tried to make a burrito but I found it more effective to tear slices of tortilla and dunk them into the beans.
All of this was washed down by some hot ghetto mochas with the hope that this would push us the next 10 miles up the mountain.

It was 26 miles to Idyllwild from where we started this morning. As I write this we still have around 16 miles to cover, so it could be a very long day!

Sarah’s knee seems to be improving. Or least she’s not moaning as much. This is great news + let’s hope this continues.

We take a short blue blaze to a natural spring. We are surrounded by lush sweet pine trees and large Manzanita bushes.
Its interesting how the desert plants have given way to these more high altitude alpine varieties.

About 4 miles from the top the cloud starts to look really ominous stretching out down into the valley beneath.
The periphery of the dark clouds are lit up by the sun as it starts to set + once again the angels start singing.
I check the weather report on my Garmin. It says that there is zero precipitation, but my spidy sense is tingling. Something tells me we are in store for some bad weather and these heavy dark clouds all around us are snow clouds.
It wasn’t long before it starts to get dark.
The trail was hard going and with all the elevation gain there was no risk of us getting cold tonight.

By the time we pulled in for the night we had only covered approx. 18 miles. This was below what we had planned, but we had ascended over 7,267 feet which is a lot for 1 day and is a new record for us.

San Jacinto is shaping up to be a really spicy and enjoyable mountain. The trail was challenging and rugged, yet at the same time beautiful.
Towards the top of the mountain we were hiking through heavy pine forest and through lots of fallen trees and blowdowns.

The last stretch the trail weaved through a series of rugged rock formations and at times it almost seemed like we were scrambling.

We started to feel bits of snow hitting our faces and by the time we pulled in for the evening we were both deadbeat.

The tent site we had chosen was underneath the bows of a pine tree.
The ground was dry and the low branches
seemed to offer a decent amount of protection.

Cam and Hoppy said they were going to try and reach the summit and stay in the Summit Hut Shelter.
The shelter offered 4 wooden bunks and was to be used as an emergency shelter.
This was approx 2000 ft higher than where we decided to camp.
It would have been epic if we had reached the top to check out a sunset / sunrise, but it would be much colder up there.
The weather was starting to turn, so I think we made the right decision.

As we put up the tent it started to snow more heavily and it wasn’t long before the tent was getting peppered with tiny frozen bits of ice.

We had no option but to cook our dinner inside the tent vestibule. With the doors zipped closed I rustled up some Ramen noodles.
When Sarah peeled back the door of the tent to look outside the ground was white with snow.

It sounds pretty gross, but we even cleaned our teeth inside the tent spitting out the used toothpaste into a talente pot.
Its expected to drop to below -2.5 c / 27 f tonight, so we’re expecting a very cold night. If you take you arms outside of the sleeping bags or liners you can feel the full force of the cold.

We had planned to get to Idyllwild in 4 days, getting into town tonight.
Altgough sometimes the best laid plans have to change and we were sensible calling it a night.
Let’s see how tomorrow goes and how we feel when we wake up.
We could always skip a zero in Julian. Or maybe we could just nip into Idyllwild and not stay to make the miles back.
Time will indeed tell.