Woke up this morning to some dark clouds passing overhead. It did give some beautiful color to the morning sunrise. We are expecting a storm to push in today. We hope to get to Idyllwild before it hits but time will tail, heading out at 7:30.
The desert apricot is a plant we have seen earlier in the hike. This one has sported many more flowers.
We continue climbing up in to the high desert, of course, with more amazing views, and we caught the sight of a rainbow in the distance
We came across some trash on the side of the trail. It was a mylar balloon up here in the middle of nowhere. Ryan stuck in the back of my pack to carry out. It was a Dora the Explorer (I think) birthday balloon. He made sure that it looks like Dora is taking a hitch.
You guessed it another pipe gate
Mary’s oasis, it’s just a quick place to stop alongside the trail. Mary is a local Trail angel who has set up this area in the very corner of her property. She provides water some tables to sit at and even a small free library. There we met Stripes, Squats, and Skittles, From right to left in the picture.
Beautiful field of poppies, all along the trails
High on top of one of the desert mountains is this lush green Little Valley with rugged steep rock faces on the other side of the ridge
Impressive view of eroded cliffs along the trail side
Another reminder of how far we’ve come, the 150 mile mark
This is rumored to be the ranch of red skeleton
Paradise Valley Café is a another one of the PCT iconic stops. 1 mile from the trail. It is rumored to have one of the best burgers on the trail. It is pretty good. The brownie sundae was good as well. The place is packed with hikers coming in off the trail, most of them holding up for the storm.
Many places have trail registers for hikers to sign. Paradise Valley Café has one as well.
From Paradise Valley, we received a ride from a Trail angel named Grumpy who brought us into Idyllwild for our zero stay. A zero day is a day we do no hiking at all, we just recover. We will go to town for resupply, do our laundry, eat a lot, organize our stuff, make our future plans, and just lay around. Just as I got to our room it started snowing. It will be a cozy place to hold up for the next day recuperating.
Today’s Miles’s 11.7 total trail miles 151.8.
