Today's miles: 0
Total miles: 151
We woke up to the sound of the boys excitedly getting ready for their slack pack today. It was also pouring. Nothing about hiking to 8,000 feet for 30 miles in the rain sounded fun to me.
Fortunately, Katie, Hitch, Giddyup, and Wocka Wocka all agreed, so instead of hiking out of Idyllwild today, as had been our original plan, we took a zero.
We reserved the cabin for the night and reveled in a full day in town to do absolutely nothing! I joked that there was a gym next door and we should "totally go walk the treadmills!" But for some reason everyone wanted to be lazy, go figure.
Katie and I explored town a bit (absolutely adorable) and we stopped by a bakery where she bought her second honey bun of the day. I joked that it should be her trail name, and she embraced it. Though she altered it to "Honey Bunny" due to her uncanny knack of finding bunnies on the trail literally every day.
When we got back to the cabin, Wocka Wocka and Giddyup were making a big plate of nachos, Bob had made enough stir fry for an army, Katie rented the movie "Argo", and I bought cookies and ice cream to share. We had a thoroughly glutinous evening. After so many days on the trail, it's nice to have a day off and enjoy it with friends. In the past 48 hours these "hikers" we've been passing on the trail have suddenly become good and dear friends, looking out for each other and bonded by the one crazy thing we all have in common. I understand why thru-hikers make friends for life in very short amounts of time.
We turned in way past bedtime -10 pm - and learned that the slack pack boys had made it back safely, but it had taken them 13 hours and apparently hiking such rocky ridge lines in such bad weather was not something they wanted to repeat anytime soon. We were feeling smart about Argo and nachos right about then and especially about another night in a cute mountain cabin with friends.