Woke up feeling good this morning with a beautiful sunrise, packed up, ate some breakfast, and just before heading out we visited with Becky and Ryan who had camped next to me. Nice couple good conversation.
Mike’s place is not up and going yet this season but it was a nice place to stop; as I said last night we had 8 to 12 other campers in here with us. We were on the
On the trail at 7:30.
Mount San Jacinto is the snow covered peak directly in front of us. That’s what we will be going through hopefully in the next 3 to 5 days. As of now the forest closure is still affecting 5 miles of the trail, but there are some alternate routes people have found, and that is what we will probably end up doing. Although we won’t be officially on trail for the whole portion It is an official closure with a walkable detour so that still fits into the through hike criteria. If you zoom in on the picture behind San Jacinto to the left is a peak with only snow, no vegetation or rock visible. That is San Gergonio which stands between San Jacinto and Big Bear Lake
There are a till some small patches of snow along the section at this altitude. We climbed about 3 miles up, and then descended for around 8 followed by some up and down over 2 miles before dropping 1 mile into camp.
We stopped for lunch at a location with a water tank for a good fill up. We laid out all of our stuff to dry, a task known as “yard selling”, took off our shoes, and just relaxed for a few. Hiker trash is a term of endearment used in the Trail community. It has different definitions by different people, but the one I like the most is “those who ditch social norms and live their life a different way on trail”. The lack of showers, willingness to eat anything anywhere, finding shelter wherever possible, a ragged appearance, wearing the same thing, all day every day, and the smells that may come with that, regardless of how much you try to clean. I find us slowly becoming hiker trash.
We’re primarily along the desert floor at this point still going up and down in smaller increments to our camp. There are still patches with a lot of pretty flowers. I post of them before, but I’m doing it again.
I will reach a water cistern in about a half a mile ahead. It is basically just a concrete tank literally in the middle of nowhere that is filled with water. This will be our final water for tonight and we will fill up just in case the camp has none.
We got into camp right at 4 PM. GI’m gad I got water at the cistern. There is no water here at the campsite which sits right along A dry river bed drainage with nice soft sandy patches to put the tent. Ryan was behind me by about 10 minutes and did not fill up at the cistern. He now has To leave his pack here and go a mile back, uphill to get water.
Today’s miles 13.2 total Trail miles 140.2.
