A beautiful morning again greeted us with the sun poking through the trees. We say goodbye to San Jacinto today. And head down thankfully dry trails.
This was a slow, tough challenging, yet exhilarating section of trail. But I am thankful to be out of snow for now. It was good preparation and training for the historic snowfall. We still face in the Sierras.
Grateful we met Charlie a few days ago. He’s been a fantastic hiking partner as we went through the challenge on sections.
The rock formations in the San Jacinto’s on entry and exit have been some of my favorite sites
As I continue drop down trail, San Jacinto shrinks in the background, and San Gorgonio grows in the foreground.
Clearwater Cryptantha and Distant Phacelia greet us on the trail, and Are a welcome site after three days of nothing but snow
Cup Leafed Ceanothus plants are sprouting flowers on just about every branch, and the Manzanita has started budding its flowers
Civilization looms
Really cool view of San Jacinto up behind these two giant boulders
The yellow, flowered Bush Poppy is not something I think I have seen before. Also, sporting, a yellow flower is the Narrowleaf Goldenbush
Yes, it’s a weed, but the purple flowered New Mexico Thistle is beautiful. We’ve seen Indian paintbrush earlier, this is a new species. It is the woolly Indian paintbrush.
This chaparral yucca is in full bloom.
OK while we’ve passed the 200 mark along time ago, I didn’t get a picture with this official one
This Beavertail Prickly Pear is the first one we’ve seen showing it’s flower
The purple flowered Thick Leaved, Yerba Santa
It’s nice listening to the sound of water as we pass by the snowmelt Springs
Fountain grass lines, the trail, and I found a solo False Bird Weed
Two trail videos I hope can show some of the beauty from my vantage. (YouTube upload limit reached will have to add tomorrow.)
This white flower is known as Freemont’s pin cushion
Yet another really neat collection of rocks
Lizards are everywhere, but they rarely sit still for us to get a picture. This little guy decided to cooperate. It reminds us we are not the only ones here.
The water tank that we saw in one of my earlier videos feeds this pipe, your kind enough to pop water faucet out for us to drink
We are 12 miles down the trail joining this paved road toward the highway. Not sure if we will be on the road the whole way. I hope not. It kind of pounds the feet.
We saw some clay, art figurines, like this way back somewhere close to the start of the hike
Our last mile takes us down this dry riverbed to the freeway underpass where we will try to get a ride into Banning for the night.
And we arrived at the I 10 underpass and were welcomed by water and oranges by a local Trail angel.
We called an Uber and Blanchie picked us up. She was incredible. She took us by In-N-Out on the way and a fourth hiker who showed up just prior to the ride was able to come with us. I had two animal style, double doubles, fries, and a Neapolitan shake yum.
After getting our hotel and showering, we took another Uber to Walmart for our food resupply picked up a Phone in Thai order. On the way home eight finished this bug and went to sleep. Yes, I had two dinners, coconut salmon and coconut chicken soup.
Today’s miles 16.1 Total trail miles 410.1
(PCT mile mark 209.5 due to Flip completion of 200.7)
Beautiful flowers! Good job on the Neapolitan shake, love those. Tell Ryan his package is tracking to be delivered Friday. AD
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