Day Fifteen

Today's miles: 21
Total miles: 201

It was another beautiful day in the mountains. As usual, we spent the day climbing to high elevations and oogling over the pretty views. Besides Hitch and Chris, we haven't seen many hikers these past few days. Most of them either slack packed this section so they are ahead of us, or they are behind us and taking time off in Idyllwild. Being alone out here makes the trail seem more mysterious, somehow, and more peaceful. But it will be nice to catch up to our friends again in a few days.

By lunch we had hiked 10 miles and had arrived at the infamous Fuller Ridge: a 15 mile descent from San Jacinto down to the desert valley below. It went from 9,000 feet to 2,000 over those 15 miles, and was a series of slow, switchbacking loops downward. I didn't mind the downhill, but the trail through this section was frustrating. It had shrubs overgrown so thickly that I earned my trail name twice over today, with a rocky and steep cliff that had to be carefully avoided.

To make matters more interesting, a storm had decided to crop up and was quickly making its way toward us. The wind got very strong, and pretty soon we were running down this craggy mountain face trying to beat the storm down. I had to stow away my hat or risk losing it, and put on my raincoat as we started getting pelted by raindrops. The ridge we were on had no cover and no campsites, so we had no choice but to continue as quickly as possible down the mountain.

The trouble was, we had already hiked 18 miles and I was nearing exhaustion. My feet were tired, my body sore, and I was running and limping my way to safety. Fortunately for us, the storm blew over before it could get bad, so we were able to find a safe campsite just past the momentous 200 mile mark and set up our tent out of the elements. It was a windy night, but not a rainy one, and we finished out the day with a beautiful view and a rainbow.

Day Fourteen

Today's miles: 17
Total miles: 180

Today will go down in infamy as the day that I discovered caffeinated energy gels. And I got my trail name. (No relation). But more on that later.

Since last night was so cold, we got a much later start than usual this morning. Without desert temperatures to worry about, we don't have to fret about running from the sun all day, which is a welcome change.

We were on the trail at 8 and climbing, once again.  The elevation was still kicking my butt, but I was so happy not to have 100 degree temperatures at 9 am that it didn't matter as much. It just meant slower traveling. The views on this section of trail have been absolutely stunning. Everyone agrees it's the prettiest stretch we've done, and I'm glad we didn't do it in poor weather, because we would have missed all the views. We were up at 9,000 feet now, higher than I have ever hiked, and could see down into the valley on either side of the ridge line. We walked among pine trees and cool breezes and I was in heaven.

However, we were still moving along quite slowly. By 3:00 pm we had only done 11 miles and I was very winded by the high elevation climbs. I was also growing quite frustrated by the shrubs that overtake the PCT. You see, the trail is only a foot wide most of the time, and often it is rimmed by prickly brushes, shrubs and other thorny things that hang over into it and force you to walk through them. And clumsy me, I get stuck in those damn shrubs every. Single. Time. They beat me up and take my lunch money and then spit me back out. Rude, I tell you. But my inability to get through those shrubs on the first try earned me my trail name today: Bramble. And since I'm a slow hiker anyway, the name works as a contraction of "Brittany Ambles", so it fits. My trail name is born.

We took a short snack break midday and that's when I discovered a caffeinated energy gel that had been hiding in my backpack for a week.

Ok, here's what you need to know about this situation. First, I never have caffeine. Like, ever. No soda, no coffee, no nothin. Not that I have anything against it, I just don't generally like the taste of those things. But this also means that my body doesn't quite know what to do when given the equivalent of two shots of espresso. But today I needed a pick me up, I had the gel shot, and several thing happened in quick succession:

1) I turned into the equivalent of a drunken five year old with ADD. ("Hey guys! Hey! Hey! Whatcha doin? Hey!")
2) I went from plodding slowly along the trail to something similar to a light jog. While giggling about it.
3) I started making up ridiculous songs about climbing mountains and singing them. Loudly. Off key. And they sounded like this:

"This is my uphill song!
Why don't you sing along?
Going uphill's really lame!
But soon it'll go down again!"

4) I sang in a funny accent so that the words "lame" and "again" rhyme. (They do. I promise.)

Basically the moral of the story is that caffeine changed my life. Or at least made me scale 3,000 feet of elevation in a somewhat drunken state, which is kind of the same thing.

So the rest of the day's hike was pretty awesome after that. I was feeling good, climbing mountains and kicking ass. We did 17 miles and then found a nice campsite with Hitch and Chris that night, feeling satisfied with a good day in the San Jacinto Wilderness.

Day Thirteen

Miles today: 12
Total miles: 163

When we woke at 7, it was still raining. The forecast called for snow and rain all day, so we weren't sure what to do. We didn't want to take another zero day in town, but we didn't want to be caught on the ridge in bad weather, either.

We packed up, donned our rain gear and decided to mull it over at breakfast. When we stopped in the Red Kettle for food, we found the slack pack group already there: the boys Cookie Monster, Sneaks, Rub-a-Dub, Coincidence, and Lunchbox, and the girls Kiddo and Rotisserie. Cookie Monster came over to eat with us and he gave us some good advice about hiking the ridge in the weather. His confidence made us feel better, and we decided to tackle it.

We caught a hitch back to the trailhead and the first six miles were nicely graded and surprisingly pleasant weather. We met up with Hitch and her friend Chris along the trail, though Giddyup and Wocka Wocka were ahead of us.

After the first six miles, the trail began to climb pretty steeply, gaining elevation from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. As we got higher, we started ridge walking and the views down into the valley were beautiful. The wind up high, however, was fierce and there were dark clouds hovering above the mountain tops. It was a very chilly 34 degrees up high, a drastic difference from all the 90 degree days we've been having! I had to put on my gloves, hat and jacket, and I was glad I hadn't mailed them home like I was planning to.

Twelve miles in we came to a spur for water and we decided to descend off the ridge and camp for the night. We found a beautiful little campsite surrounded by pine trees and we set up the tent against the elements. Despite the ominous clouds and wind, however, it never rained on us, and we felt quite fortunate to have evaded the bad weather with a zero in Idyllwild.

Day Twelve

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.