4/3/20, mile: 171, elevation: 6,903 ft.
Firsts: Cowboy camping, sauntering through my first sunrise, earthquake in a tent.
I was awake before dawn at my pond-side campsite. Since I cowboy camped (no tent), breaking camp was a little faster. Since I was under an old oak tree, I didn’t have any condensation issues, but I did see frost on the nearby exposed grasses…good choice.
Today’s hike was more ridgetop hiking. Up and down, sometimes around rocky peaks. And lots of views, especially to the east, Palm Desert and Coachella Valley. What a striking difference in terrain and vegetation!
It was a cold and dark start, but with the climbing, I soon warmed up. At one saddle, I had a great view of the marine layer over the valleys to the west with the sunrise to the east…and it was all mine. This is the most peaceful time to be hiking in these mountains. No wind, temperatures are perfect for climbing, and oh yeah, I’m fresh.
With my plan to hike the entire traverse without descending to Idyllwild or to water sources, I’m carry 5 days of food and a lot of water. So I’m slow, especially when it starts to climb. I can barely maintain 1 mph, and it’s starting to worry me. The lack of speed and the limited campsites available, it’s a tough call when and where to camp. I spend a LOT of time looking at the Guthooks app to try to plan the afternoon and evening. This is NOT the relaxing come-what-may hike it was previously. And don’t forget weather is coming in…
Approaching the 169-170 mile mark is Apache Peak and the location where a thru-hiker died and two more were injured the week before by sliding off the trail. The trail is on the northeast side of a steep mountain side and shaded by large trees. So the snow lingers here, and below the trees the chute continues, snow-covered for several hundred feet. When I get there, it doesn’t look too bad; the snowy section is only 100-yds long or so. But in the middle section, the footpath is no longer level (previous footprints aren’t obvious), and the drop off is long and icy. The consequences of a slip are nasty to say the least. And with it being afternoon, the surface of the snow is now getting slushy, making traction even more iffy.
In situations like this, I can see how it can be easy to forgo putting on traction devices (shoe chains, micro-spikes or crampons), since it’s such a short section. I’ve seen the same mindset in the workplace, where workers forgo using the proper PPE or safety procedures to “just get it done quickly”. And hell, I’ve been carrying these damn crampons for two days now, might as well use them; get them off my back at the least.
Mid-traverse, Sarah calls. I’m at a tree stump, so it’s safe enough to take the call, but I make it short. Later on, she would say I sounded “kinda tense”. Umm, yeah. It was all really comical. Two other hikers arrived behind me yelled me questions about the conditions. They decided to do a walk-around (which I had noted on my USGS maps), that seem like such an easier (though higher) option.
Being close to 4pm , I called the day at the next campsite located in a saddle. The afternoon winds were howling, but I was able to get some tent protection with bushes and trees. I need to make miles, but the next site is higher up and 2 miles away. I don’t want to push my day/evening like that; who knows what THAT site looks like, and 11 hours on the trail is enough for today. But damn, these 10-mile days will push me to getting off the mountain on Sunday; really pushing my comfort zone….
Radish and Mom arrive shortly after me. After they did the walk around, they decided to stop here as well. They invite me to share dinner time together. We all struggled to cook dinner in the wind, as well as stay warm. Radish is from Indianapolis and Mom is from Germany. It’s funny to start talking about other hikers we commonly know and when/where we’ve seen them. It’s a social network that has a long refresh rate. They plan to go over the summit of San Jacinto, while I’ll just stay on the PCT and travers around (shorter and lower elevation).
The wind drives us into our tents quite quickly. It’s howling and scary. The tent shakes often, but doesn’t blow over; but I can’t understand how more trees don’t blow over. And then I felt something different. My sleeping pad started shaking, like a vibratory bed. Turns out we had a 4.9 earthquake nearby. Freaky for sure, you feel really vulnerable outside to begin with; yet it’s probably the safest place (provided you’re not near falling rocks).
This trail continues to keep me on my toes.