We are Walking out of camp at 6:45 today in sunshine planning cross Apache peak, which is considered one of the more challenging portions of this trail.
Leaving camp this morning we had a steady climb up to the saddle. It has beautiful views off both sides. San Jacinto is the mountain covered in snow.
With each peak we go over we become closer and closer to San Jacinto
We continue to have incredible views of the valleys on both side of the mountain range as we cross Long Ridges regularly
On this crest, you can see Palm Springs in the background and the snow covered at San Jacinto mountain
This tree almost has turned into a mistletoe tree
Just before lunch, we had a nice steep ascent up Spitler peak
We just pushed through along the side of Spitler peak. There is a large section that has a blow downs, and some possible landslide where the trail was not visible that we picked our way through. Did some rock hopping some log, jumping one of my funner sections of trail.
Came out at the far side at a saddle beautiful views on both side and an awesome place for us to take a lunch break.
As we continue up, Apache Peak lies ahead again having steep accents and rocky terrain
As we get on the leeward side we again began to encounter small snowfields
As we traverse around the side of Apache Peak, we got to the dangerous area the snow is very slushy and we did not want to take a chance. We backtracked a little bit climbed straight uphill to the peak crossed over the Ridge Line of Apache and rejoined the trail just passed the quarter-mile danger section.
This is another picture of the Palm Springs Valley.
Today’s hiking was fairly technical. Lots of blow downs a lot of snow patches to navigate lots of altitude. Hiking was slower than we would have liked and we settled on a campsite 4 1/2 miles short of our goal. It is fairly well sheltered from the wind and the safe decision. Between us and the next campsite, there is no place to camp. There is a rock slide to traverse an altitude climb, unknown snow patches, and reported large number of tree blow down to navigate.
Today’s miles 11.2 Total trail miles 371.6.
(PCT mile mark 170.9 due to Flip completion of 200.7)
