Idyllwild – Julian – Day 162 – Sun Dec 3rd

Day 162 Sun Dec 3rd
Tent site 2 Cove – HWY S2 /CA 78 – Julian
2574.8 – 2778.2
Approx. 89 ft ascent 879 ft descent
3.5 Miles
Nero day

We wake up to a beautiful bluebird sky this morning and walk the remaining 3.2 miles down to the highway.
The trail was surrounded by so many different species of cactus + the numbers of Barrell Cactus also started to increase. They seemed to be everywhere.

We both comment we really like this section and wonder just how beautiful it was during the spring flower blume.
Despite being in the high desert mountains there is a real feeling of desert.

At this stage the jury is still out whether we decide to stay a night in Julian.
We haven’t showered for 5 days and our clothes are in need of a wash.
We also have electronic devices to charge and resupply to do.
Psychologically it always feels nice when you leave a town feeling all ship shape and it would make sense if we stayed.

Every couple of minutes we’re stopping taking photos of this dynamic landscape and interesting plants.

We reach Scissors Crossing and Highway 78 where it doesn’t take as long to get a hitch from a kind lady called Linda.
She takes us to the cute mountain town that is Julian where we pop into Mom’s pies for a free slice of the most delicious pie known to man.
I had an apple caramel crumble and Sarah had a chocolate pecan pie to start.
They were both so good we even went back for round two.

During our time in Mom’s pie shop we met a couple Amy and Jake that we had 1st met back on the trail in Big Bear. What a small world!

Suitably full we then popped into the food market to resupply. As predicted it was expensive!
Julian is another one of these popular mountain towns which seems to attract a lot of tourism particularly over weekends.
There are lots of gift and pie shops and the grocery stores seem to be able to charge whatever they want.
It’s a little like an American version of some of the small villages like Stow or Bourton-on-the-Water back in Oxfordshire.
There’s a real play on the historic side of the town with an old skool pioneering + mining theme.

Once done we head to the Oak Hill Inn for a night of luxury.
We stayed in a lovely room which had a native theme.
Outside our room there was a swimming pool and a communal hangout room, which had a bar and stocked fridge operated using an honesty box.

It was a great find and our amazing host Laura even allowed us to use her own washing machine. Something that we were not expecting to be able to do in Julian.

It was amazing to take a shower + the hot water felt so good after 5 days out on the trail.
We even found 2 dehydrated Mountain House meals in the hiker box that someone had kindly left. We just couldn’t pass up on this and added them to our food bags.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting ship shape.
Then later we ventured out to the Italian restaurant Romano’s. There was such a nice atmosphere and we had an excellent meal.

On returning back to our room we sat in bed drinking Hard Lemonade and watching a documentary about the fire situation on the west coast.
It showed how the authorities were struggling to deal with the increasing threat of super fires and the effects of global warming.
It was incredibly interesting and a nice way to finish to a great night in Julian.