Idyllwild to Interstate 10, April 29th-May1st

Back in Idyllwild I delivered my car to a friendly young mother who had seen my ad on Craigslist and agreed to buy it that weekend, and then crawled into a hotel room to recover from the kickoff party.  I went back to the Apple Blossom Inn where I had stayed with Jessie and the others before leaving Idyllwild because they do a hiker special of $50/night before tax and the manager, Mim, will let you do your laundry for free.  (This night I wanted to be alone and recover, but they also don't mind small groups of hikers sharing a room - my previous time there we'd had four people sharing the room, and Mim had even given us extra towels.)  

Idyllwild, CA

The next day I deposited the money from selling my car and mailed home everything that had been in it but didn't belong in my pack.  Since I had bought the tarp I sent my tent home, but unpacked it first to retrieve the little bag of tent pegs to use with the tarp.  Upon unpacking it, I found that two large, heavy spikes had been stowed in the tent bag.  This is actually a pretty clever prank - you make a hiker carry something ridiculously heavy and unneeded, and when they discover it they're probably out on the trail and can't just ditch the extra weight but have to carry into the next town to dispose of it.  If I'd actually carried the big, heavy spikes up Devil's Slide I may not have found the idea so novel, but as it was, I thought it was pretty funny, and still have no idea who did it. 

In the afternoon I ran into Herk, the plumbing contractor who had driven Mike D and I into Idyllwild a week earlier, and he offered me a ride back out to the trail.  I hopped into his truck, and as we drove we chatted about smoking and drinking - Herk had been a non-smoker for 20 years, and a non-drinker for five.  He spoke about it not as someone trying to convince anyone else that his way was better, but rather simply as someone who was happier since he had made changes in his life.  I told him how I'd done the same with cigarettes 2.5 years ago, but I still hadn't figured out alcohol.  

"My ideal solution is moderation," I said, "but I can't say I've gotten the hang of that yet."  We both laughed.  One great thing about long-distance hiking, actually, has been that I've gone close to dry without even trying.  My body craves exactly two lemonades or sodas per beer, which makes it difficult to even catch a buzz.  

Hiking back up the Devil's Slide

The Devil's Slide running from Humboldt Park back up to the PCT is called "The Devil's Slide" for a reason, and I walked the 2.5 miles up it sweating and grumbling.  Upon reaching the PCT the trail flattened out briefly, and then steepened again.  This was my first day walking with trekking poles.  Most PCT  hikers use them and I wanted to try them (A) because they were said to lessen the impact on your knees and (B) because they would double as poles to pitch my new tarp, but I didn't understand how to use them efficiently.  I remembered Afghani Danny telling me that they didn't help on flat stretches and were dead weight uphill, but were critical for the purpose of lessening impact when going downhill.  Today a hiker that I'd met at the kickoff caught up with me.  His trail name was Stumbling Beef, he was a bartender in Bend, Oregon, and he'd also hiked as far as Idyllwild before heading back down for the party.  He told me almost the exact opposite about the poles, that he used them to help push himself uphill, and held them out in front of himself on downhill stretches in order to catch himself if he fell, but rarely actually planted them.  He shortened my poles so that they went up only to my waist, and told me to keep them behind me and use them to help push myself uphill rather than holding them in front of me as I was doing.  I tried this, and it did seem to relieve some of the work of moving uphill from my legs.   

Stumbling Beef asked if I was going to make the detour to climb San Jacinto Peak.  I said that I hadn't considered it, and he said that he was trying to decide himself.  We came upon a nice-looking campsite and he stopped to make an early camp and  mull over the decision.  I continued on through patches of snow, and learned one hard lesson with the trekking poles:  If you worry about planting the poles before you worry about where you put your feet, you'll place your feet carelessly and sooner or later you'll slip hard enough that you won't be able to maintain your balance with your poles.  On one icy patch I fell backwards hard, and aggravated my left knee in the process.   

The trail got steeper, narrower, and rockier.  When I passed a stream that shouldn't have been there according to the water report, I pulled out the Guthook's app and found that I was heading to summit San Jacinto Peak.  Grumbling, I picked my way back down to the trail, and found that I'd
stupidly headed the wrong way at this junction:

Coming from Idyllwild, I should have gone towards Strawberry Cienaga but instead started up San Jacinto Peak

I hiked well into the darkness before stretching out my pad and bag in the lee of a downed tree and fading out for the night.  I woke to find the entire valley below covered in clouds. 

A couple was camped nearby, and they came over to say hi as I drank my coffee.  She introduced herself as Two Step, and he as Splits, explaining that they were dancers.  They were current year thru-hikers from the Bay Area, and had thru-hiked the AT the year before.

"What kind of dancers?"

"Two step, swing,..."

"How do dancers afford this?"  I remembered going to a ballet with my friend Pam in grad school.  Prior to the performance, an announcer had discussed a program called "Second Step."  Apparently the professional career of a dancer is over when he or she is still fairly young, and they are generally left without any savings or alternative job skills.  The program provided academic and vocational training, and it stuck in my head because it fulfilled a need whose existence had never occurred to me.

"Well," he said, with a smile, "we're retired."  I would meet Two Step and Splits again the next day, and learn what exactly he was retired from.   

Two Step and Splits

I hiked off alone and came across a camp called Strawberry Junction.  It was completely remote, but had a port-o-potty.  I was absolutely baffled as to how it got there - there were no roads accessing the site.  Did they move it in with a helicopter?  What would they do when the pit was filled with waste?  I thought of my friend Gloria in Coos Bay who had had an outhouse calendar, and thought that although this was only a port-o-potty, it deserved a page on a calendar by sheer virtue of it's location. 
 

This camp is hilarious because it is completely remote, and has...

this port-o-potty sitting in it.

One of these shots would be great for the Outhouse Calendar. 

I was still at a high elevation (I had slept at about 9,000 feet), and appreciated every step of the cool and shade before the huge drop into the desert. 

The beauty of 9,000 feet

More beauty of 9,000 feet

Someone had constructed this shelter at this junction.

The trail is well-maintained up in the high elevation.

I'm calling this "Armadillo Rock."

Taking a break to elevate my feet - even 5 minutes makes a huge difference.

The trail winds downhill into the valley below.

Although there's not that many snowy patches on the trail, I was incredibly clumsy on them and wished I had spikes for my boots.

There is definitely satisfaction in looking back and reading this sign referring to a stretch of the trail you just finished.

At the Fuller Ridge Trailhead there was an access road and picnic tables, and I stopped to rest and have lunch.  Stumbling Beef happened by, having summited San Jacinto and already caught up with me.  We sat lounging about, and two guys hiked up and joined us.  Their names were Anson and Jesse, and they had recently been discharged from the army.  They had served in the same unit, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and had become friends and realized that they'd both independently wanted to hike the PCT.  They said that they were sick of the desert, and would hike as far as Big Bear and then probably skip over the rest of the desert.  Stumbling Beef tried to talk them out of that.

"Don't you want to be able to say you've hiked the entire trail?"

"Have you seen Iraq?"  Anson answered.  "We've spent enough time in the desert." 

Stumbling Beef (foreground), Jesse and Anson (background)

Stumbling Beef took off again and I took off after him, using a joint departure as a way to motivate myself to start walking again but having no illusions about being able to catch up with him. 

Looking down and to the west - my family's house should be out there somewhere.

I did find him waiting for me at one spot, though.  At the kickoff party they had shown a lot of video and photos of the previous year's thru-hikers.  I'd purposely avoided this because I didn't want to have an idea of what my hike should be like, but Stumbling had attended and apparently there had been some cool footage from this spot.  He asked me to take his picture out on this rock,

Stumbling Beef

and then asked me if I wanted one of myself.  I wouldn't have considered climbing out on that rock on my own and it did make for a few good pictures, so I was glad that I hadn't seen the videos and also glad that he had. 

Me

The yoga pose

The tour guide pose

The trail descends from 9,000 feet at mile 186 down to about 1,200 feet at mile 207 (mileages eyeballed from the Guthook's app), and once you head out of the high elevation, is almost completely devoid of shade.  There's also no water between a tributary to north fork of the San Jacinto River that crosses the trail at mile 186.2 and the Snow Creek Road faucet at mile 205.7 (mileages from the PCT Water Report), making this one of the more challenging stretches of the trail.  The water report warned that "some hikers underestimate water needs in this section of the trail, which can get very hot as the trail descends down the N side of Mount San Jacinto.  Three hikers required helicopter rescue from this area in 2012."  I didn't underestimate my water needs but was limited by what I could physically carry.  I did the stretch on 5 liters, which included one night's camping, but other hikers did it on less. 

These trees seemed to grow directly out of the rocks.

A forest fire had been through here recently.

These plants had been burnt down by the fire and are a combination of blackened stumps and new growth.

One hiker that I encountered asked me if this was fog or smog, and I had no idea. 

Again, you've been hiking through the desert too long when you get excited by an interesting rock.

I climbed down, down, down, and darkness fell on me in a steep, windy stretch with no real places to camp.  I was happily distracted by a few sights including small birds resting on the trail, and a signpost heralding the 200-mile mark on the trail. 

I know this picture doesn't capture it, but these little birds were sitting on the trail at night and they were adorable.  Really, just trust me. 

Mile 200!

I finally sat down just to try to get a text out to my sister.  I'd been sitting there for a few minutes when I heard a man's voice.

"Lost hiker?"

"No, just sending a text - who is that?"

"Stumbling Beef."  He was camped 100 yards below me, in a flat, sandy spot with some shelter from the wind. 

"It's Busted - can I join you?" 

"Come on down!"

It was late and he was already in his sleeping bag, so I tried to set myself up as quickly as possible (which is never that quickly) and lay down immediately to go to sleep.  In the morning he packed up quickly, and I knew from the previous day that I'd have a better hike if I didn't try to keep up with him.  Instead I sat lounging with my coffee, snapping photos of him as he left, and waving goodbye, and then broke my own camp leisurely. 

Stumbling Beef prepares to head out in the morning

Stumbling Beef heads out

I picked my way down the last five miles or so to the valley. 

The trail gets a little ridiculous at points.

Experimenting with angles

 

Any spot with a little shade became really interesting.

Coming into the valley

I reached the Snow Creek Road faucet in the late morning, and there I really and truly earned my trail name "Busted."  The faucet is maintained by the Desert Water Agency, the water utility for the Palm Springs area.    

The Snow Creek Road faucet

Maybe they've had problems with vandalism in the past, because a camera (visible in the picture below) watches the faucet. 

Note the camera mounted on the pipe in the background directly behind the faucet.

I filled up my water bladder, treated the water, and sat lounging in the shade while the treatment took effect. 

The best spot along this stretch of the trail - in the shade, next to a water fountain

Before leaving I went around the other side of the rock to pee, and then realized that while I was a respectful distance from the fountain, I was still in full view of the camera and was probably on film.  Yes, that's right - I busted myself.  I couldn't wait to see Jessie again and tell her how appropriate the trail name she had given me was.

The terrain stretched out flat towards Interstate 10. 

A sign warning of construction activities warned hikers to stop if they saw helicopters,

but I saw no activity at all. 

The aforementioned construction zone

These large elements of civilization did seem a bit surreal after my time in the mountains, but I think that this scene may have seemed bizarre even if I'd come out of the city and seen it from that perspective, so really can't claim any kind of culture shock as of yet. 

Power lines seemed a bit surreal.

A dune buggy rumbled past me, and the driver stopped.  He and his passengers asked a few questions about the PCT, and I gave them cards for my blog.  His company, Dune Buggy Tours and Rentals, offered tours in and rentals of dune buggies, and I rentals of ATVs also, and I found it surreal that people would seek out this terrain for recreation. 

A dune buggy tour

Two young men caught up with me right before I reached Interstate 10. 

Interstate 10, in all it's glory

The trail cuts right underneath the train tracks and the freeway.

Under I-10

Under I-10

Under the freeway was the most beautiful sight - two coolers, the left one full of ice and sodas and the right one full of ice and beer. 

These boxes of refreshments are provided by trail angels David and Anne

The sweetest sight...

We also found the Lion King, whom I had first met at Trail Angel Cushy's house and then again at the kickoff party.  The Lion King had skipped the downhill stretch by taking a tram down from the mountains. 

"I thru-hiked in 2006 so I don't have anything to prove - why repeat the worst parts?  I'm just section hiking this year anyways."  If you were going to skip a section, I thought, that was definitely the section to skip. 

The Lion King (foreground) and other hikers relaxing under I-10

I drank an orange soda and shotgunned a beer, and the four of us lay in shade talking.  An ATV pulled up and a man got out - he was David of "David-N-Anne," the couple sponsoring the soda and beers.  He said that their offerings had been vandalized once the previous year, and a sign had been left telling them not to give beer to hikers.  David did not accuse anyone, but the fact that the well-known trail angels a mile ahead didn't allow alcohol on their property suggested itself.  

"It's stupid," he said, "if you want a beer, take one - if you don't want a beer, don't."  Moreover, the hiking conditions flatly precluded alcohol abuse.  I had one orange soda and one beer, and walked away wishing I'd had a second orange soda - there's no way that I physically could have consumed enough alcohol to get obnoxious.    

David collecting trash

"Well," I said, "on the issue of alcohol, we're all staunchly pro."  The boys laughed, and I thanked David profusely before heading the last mile to Ziggy and The Bear's, where my sister was scheduled to pick me up that evening.

Looking back on I-10 and the mountains I've just climbed down from

Upon finding the house I entered the backyard, as the instructions in my guidebook said to do.  The yard was really set up for hikers.  Outside of the high fence were two port-o-potties, and inside it here was a sink for washing clothes and lines for drying them.  Further in there were tables and chairs in the shade, hiker boxes full of food and clothes, outlets for charging electronic devices, and even a computer for anyone who needed it.  Beyond that there was a large carpeted area under tenting where hikers could sleep, and a small building with a shower.  The place was run by Ziggy and The Bear, and by another hiker who went by "iPod."  I wandered in and they saw me, and sprung into action.  

"Get some water for her feet!"

"You need to sign the book in order, and you need to stand up against the wall for your picture!"

"I have to run back into Cabezon so I'm doing a second Burger King run today - do you want to put in an order?  I'm leaving now!"

"Has anyone given you the introduction?"

"This towel is for showering, don't use it for your feet.  We'll give you a foot towel for your feet!"

"Take your shoes off!" 

My head swam, and I tried to answer them but couldn't formulate a sentence.  I begged for a few minutes and they laughed, brought me a glass of cold water, and let me go.  After I'd used the bathroom, put my near-dead phone on the charger, moved my pack close enough that I could reach it once my feet were in the water, and bought an orange soda, they filled the foot bath and I sat in it, relaxed and happy. 

The information board at Ziggy and the Bear's

All of the people I'd met in the last stretch were there, including the dancers, Stumbling beef, and Cowtar who was jumping around section hiking and hitchhiking and I'd hiked with between Warner Springs and the Paradise Cafe.  I texted my sister that I was comfortable and not sitting under a freeway and that she could come as early or as late as she liked to pick me up, and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to make myself presentable to go to a restaurant with her.  I bathed, worked a comb through my tangled hair, washed my clothes in the sink, and hung them out where the sun and the wind dried them faster than an industrial dryer would have.  

Later in the afternoon, sitting with the dancers, I pressed the issue of retirement again and Splits told me what he was retired from.  Having double majored in chemistry and physics, he'd had a career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, or LLNL, known jokingly as "Lasers, Lasers, Nothing but Lasers."  The laboratory's laser, the world's largest by far, was the height of a seven-story building and the width of three football fields.  Splits had worked on a thermonuclear fusion project, specifically in the fusion of four hydrogen atoms into helium atom. 

"Wait, I took chemistry - isn't helium number two on the periodic table?"

"Good!" he said, "but it also has two neutrons - two of the hydrogen atoms become neutrons." 

The energy released as heat during the fusion process is used to boil water, producing steam, which can be used to generate electricity, and the goal is to eventually use this on an industrial scale.  This career sounded considerably more lucrative than dancing.

   

Two Step and Splits, the retired nuclear physicist

Yeah, that's right.