Day 7- cold morning, hot meal!
We awoke on may 12 to a completely soaked tent from condensation. This was the worst condensation we have had yet. It was extremely hard to get up because everything was wet and the morning was very cold. When we finally did get up and packed the tent up we found two scorpions underneath.
We hiked 11 miles before taking a break under the shade of a boulder and drying out our tent and sleeping bags.
In 3 more miles we came to mike herreras house. He lives about 0.2 miles off trail and has a huge water tank that hikers rely on to fill up water. Bud and tumble told us that he was cooking dinner and providing beer, tequila, and a place to rest for hikers. We wanted to do a few more miles and were going to get back on the trail when mike himself drove up. He was really nice and said he was making beans chicken potatoes and cookies and told us to come eat a hot meal. We decided it sounded to good to pass up and stayed there for a few hours with Aaron, buffalo, twinkle toes, voodoo, and David and the food was delicious.
We all (besides aaron, who stayed at mikes to rest an infected blister) hiked 2.5 more miles to some really awesome camp sites on a ridge (I posted a video of this site).
Day 8- another day in paradise
Before we went to bed on the 12th we noticed that we had 23 miles to go to a place called paradise cafe. They have a reputation for being very hiker friendly and having the best burgers on the trail, so even though they are a mile off trail many hikers choose to go there. We decided to get up earlier to give ourselves enough time to make it by dinner if we wanted to. We were hiking by 5:30 before anyone else that was camped with us was even up. We did a quick and beautiful 11 miles before 10am and stopped at a little creek for water.
Paint your wagon, bud and tumble, and John and Ben (a father and son) were also there and we hiked on and off with them all day. We really enjoyed this group of hikers. They all are out here for the experience and love of the outdoors and hiking. We all talked about how glad we were that the trail is not crowded for us. Most thru hikers started a week before we did at kick off so there is a huge group of hikers about a week ahead of us. We have heard that there are problems with people finding camp spots and having enough water at caches and we are glad to not have to worry about these problems. After our water break we hiked to hikers oasis cache and luckily there was water because this was the hottest day yet.
Someone's thermometer read 97 degrees. The hike to paradise cafe was really hot but somehow manageable by the thought of a real hand washing and food! Nate and I had to search all day but we finally found a place with cell coverage where we could call our moms for mothers day.
We made it to paradise by dinner time and were happy to get the food. They even gave us free avocados and oranges. With the 23 miles to paradise, the mile walk back to the trail, and the mile walk away from the highway to camp our total distance for the day was 25 miles.
Day 9- pine trees and wind
With the long day on the 13th and only 30 miles to idyllwild we decided to get up later on the 14th and started hiking a little after 7. The scenery was the most diverse yet. We started hiking in big boulder fields, which turned into exposed windy ridges, and finally dropped into a canyon where we saw our first pine trees!
While we were taking a break lake to lake and Warner springs Monty came around the corner. They had been doing trail magic and were section hiking for a few days. They were really nice and it was great to meet people so important to this community. We did hear a bit of bad news though. Apparently, the awesome community center that Warner springs got together for hikers this year was not met with all optimism. Some of the parents did not like their kids hanging around us hikers near the school in the town. I was surprised by this because i also heard that the school raised enough money from hikers this year that they don't need to do anymore fundraising the whole year! He suggested that we write letters of thanks to the school and community so that they will keep doing this in the future. We were really impressed by the people there and think writing them is a great idea. If anyone else stayed there and wants to write letters of thanks leave us a comment with your email and I will send you the address to send them to. We ended our day at fobes saddle. It was a great looking camp spot but unfortunately it was so windy that we didn't get any sleep. We laughed all night still and kept joking that when we woke up we wouldn't be in southern California anymore. Little did we know that the next day would really feel that way.
Day 10- "this will be the death of the hobbits"
The morning of may 15 was very cold and the wind had not died out from the night before. We even needed our puffies on. As we started out the morning on steep uphill with wind that pushed us backwards and made it difficult to even take one step, i told nate that i felt like we would soon need to make the decision to either head for the gap of rohan or down to the mines of moria. That became an ongoing joke all day and we kept yelling through the wind "this will be the death of the hobbits". We leapfrogged with John and Ben and lake to lake and Warner springs Monty all day. The terrain was steep but we loved it. It was so pretty and it felt like we had completely left southern california behind.
We reached our highest elevation yet (8600 ft) and entered the San jacinto wilderness. We got to saddle junction (mile 179.4) around 1 and took the 2.5 mile devils slide trail to the trailhead. John and Ben gave us a ride to idyllwild. We immediately took showers, ate, and slept.
Day 11- a zero in idyllwild
Today we took a zero day and made a few minor gear changes, sent a little home, got our box at the post office, got a few groceries, and ate a lot to fatten ourselves up.
Tomorrow we tackle more steep terrain and can't wait to get back out there.
-Jenna
Be Free
Great photos, videos and stories. Every day...a lifetime of memories. Thanks for sharing. Certainly a 360 degree look at our world. 10% of Cal in footprints behind you. Keep on keeping on. Peace
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