Day 19
Today's Miles: 12.2
After a quiet night camping in the mountains above Palm Springs, I was awoken to the sound of my wife, Twist, shouting "Get out of the tent! The sun is coming up!" And we were gifted with one of the best sunrises of the trip so far.
Just a few minutes later as the sun poked up.
As we packed up camp, we wondered what the day would hold. Would we hit snow? Or would the melt be enough that we could go all the way over Fuller Ridge? Because of the lack of information on snow conditions from Apache Peak through Fuller Ridge, we came up with a few options over dinner last night (which was ready in no time thanks to our new stove). We decided that we would try and get in touch with Twist's dad This morning (who was hanging out in Idyllwild with two days of food for us to get from Devil's slide to Ziggy and the Bear's place in the desert) and see if he had heard anything on what conditions were like there in town. And based on what he had (or hadn't) heard we would decide how we would go about the next 20 or so miles of the trail.
We tried getting ahold of him but were unsuccessful.....so we made the decision to go down the Spitler Trail and possibly get a ride to Black Mountain Road in order to get around the snow. BUT....two miles down the alternate trail, I kept looking back up at the mountains thinking, "we could make it". Also halfway down the alternate, we hit an area where we suddenly had reception. The phone then proceeded to explode with a series of texts from Twist's dad. Apparently, word in town was that someone made it from Devil's Slide Trail over Fuller Ridge in about 8 hours with only about 6"-8" inches of postholing.
So, with that new information we decided to turn back and do the couple miles back up to the PCT and press on. Twist's dad would hike in the 2.5 miles up Devil's Slide and drop our food and we would go on our way. We made it back up and for the next couple miles the trail was in great shape!
We were motoring along, only hitting a couple sketchy snow covered sections of trail.
But for the most part, the trail looked like this:
Which is why our next decision was so hard...
We were two miles in from where we left and then rejoined the PCT again when we met Carl. Another thru hiker, Carl had spent the night snow camping and melting snow for water. After arguing back and forth with himself all night, he decided the 4' deep snow covering the trail was not a situation fit for hiking through, especially with no tracks to follow. Upon hearing his report of the trail between Apache and Devil's Slide we decided it would probably be best to in fact go with our initial plan of the day and head down the Spitler alternate and into Idyllwild.
Since we were switching up the plan, we now had to try and get ahold of Twist's dad and let him know so he didn't hike up Devil's Slide for no reason. With no cell coverage we went to the HAM radio and were able to communicate via the PAPPA system. We were able to have another HAM operator relay a message via voicemail to Twist's dad detailing our new plan.
Coincidentally, just as Twist was talking on the radio, I happened to glance down the mountain just below the trail and spot a Mountain Lion no more than 300 feet away. It was moving fairly quickly, paralleling the trail North and paid little to no attention to us. Much to my disappointment though, I wasn't able to get any video or pictures of it.
We made it back to the alternate and hiked down (again), this time all the way to the road. There Twist's dad picked us up, along with Carl and we made our way back to the Paradise Valley Cafe for ANOTHER burger. After deciding it was too late in the day to start up Black Mountain Road, we all got a room at the Idyllwild Inn. There we met hikers Neil, Andy, Happy Pants and Robo Cop.
T to B, L to R: Robo Cop, Twist, Happy Pants, Carl and Neil.
Twist's dad took off and we all went out for pizza and beer. Carl's girlfriend Krista even drove up and joined us for the evening.
Yes, there was chocolate cake involved too...
Instead of heading out the next morning, we decided to stay here Friday as well to celebrate my 24th Birthday (which is actually Saturday) by exploring Idyllwild with our fellow hikers and will be off Saturday morning with a ride from trail angel Dave to Black Mountain Road.
Until then, here's a snapshot of life in Idyllwild:
-Tailgate
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