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May 28, 2015
Day: 4 Daily Miles: 42.5 Total Miles: 186.25 Hours Hiking: 15.6
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| Early morning view of the closed ridge line up Mt San Jacinto. |
May 28th, today I made it 42.5 miles and camped out at about a half mile passed the really amazing water of San Jacinto Creek, way up on Mt. San Jacinto. I made it to point 0527809E 3741267N UTM. I stopped at about 9:00 pm. I actually started, pshhh... probably around 5:17 am, I think, if I remember right. But I've been getting up at 4:50 am, and then it seems to take me about a half hour to get all my stuff ready and packed up and going. I hope I can shave that down a little bit. But, it is what it is, maybe I'll have to get up earlier. But, I got a good amount of sleep last night. At least I feel refreshed and after a long day of hiking I had all the water I could ever want to drink, because the water source was only like a half mile back and drank probably a liter when I got there...Rewind to the morning, lets see...yeah...I woke up at the spot I had camped at before and it was about 8 miles to Highway 74 [Pines to Palm] where the Paradise Cafe is close by. That wasn't so bad in the morning. I remembered it as being worse, but in 2012, I went to bed at 1:00 am and got up at like 6:00am or something silly and had zero sleep, so I was just dragging ass and feeling terrible the entire day. So yeah, I hiked that no problem, but I'm still not feeling very good. I tried to eat breakfast and it just did not appeal to me at all. Yeah, so I don't particularly like it, but I can usually force myself to eat granola and things, but this is just like I put it in my mouth and I chew and my body is on the verge of throwing up and it you haven't even been swallowed yet. So, I had to make due with eating some other snacks, forcing them down. I made it to the highway, got some water, there were a couple gallon jugs left for people. This is where the....well most people here probably hitch to Idyllwild because of the Mountain Fire closure. There is 10 miles of trail where you hike up the trail and hit a dead-end basically because the trail itself is closed for 15 miles along the ridge up to the mountain proper [San Jacinto]. So, because I am on a speed record attempt, I have to hike as much of the trail as possible, I had to go hike these 10 miles. There is an unofficial detour, which takes you those 10 miles, then from that point you hike down a side trail to a road, then to the main road [Hwy 74] then hike along the main road for about 6-7 miles to a dirt road that goes to another trial that intersects the PCT about a half a mile away, from where the other side of the closure is. But I made it to the highway [74] crossing and started up....I remembered it being terrible, and it was...because not a lot of people have been hiking it, it is overgrown, it's steep and it's an exposed ridge, so you just get pounded by the sun, even if though it wasn't too late...by the time I made it about half way up the ridge, I was having to take breaks, I was too hot, which makes me really think I have a fever.
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| The closure point of the PCT due to the Mountain Fire. |
I slooowwwllyyy kept pushing, kept pushing, kept pushing, and eventually made it to the closure. At which point I will not comment on what I did, but lets just say, between there and when I got to the other side of the closure, by whichever means, It was very difficult for me. I was ahead of schedule from 2012, that's for sure. I remember from 2012, it being like sunset when I reached the very top, but this time I reached the top at about 5:00 pm, so I was again about 3 hours ahead of myself. That's not to say I didn't struggle like crazy, there was definite parts of the climb where I could only go about 100 or 200 steps and have to just sit down and take a break. My body was just done. I don't know if it was dehydration, if it was....if I'm out of energy, ya know hit the wall, literally like bonked out, or.... a combination of everything: being sick, having no energy, it being day 4, my body still hasn't adjusted yet....so....its one of those...it could be lots of things. The fact that it had happened, I had attributed it to not getting much sleep, but I can't make the same claim this time, besides saying that I was sick, those are the only variables that have changed. Its hard to say. I know I need to just wait this sickness out, hopefully, if it gets better. The longer I keep hiking big miles, the better my body is going to adjust to them. But yeah, I made it to the top, Tahquitz Peak area at about 5:05 pm, which I was really happy with, because it meant I had about 4 hours before I wanted to stop, to make more miles, so I would get ahead of myself [2012], which I did. I just took it slow, plodded along. There's some ups in there, just take as many as you can, I put on an audio book, just kinda zoned out. My main goal was to get to water because when I reached the top, I only had about 0.5 liter of water, but had about 8 miles or so to go, so I HAD to make it water, otherwise I would have been very hurting for the next day....so my goal was the San Jacinto Creek, which I made actually.
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| The view back southwards towards Red Tahquitz and the closed PCT. |
The other water sources were no more than a couple tiny pools, they were fairly dry. I remember in 2012 I think they were still flowing, it's been a super bad drought year. About (laughs) 1/10 of a mile away from the water, a girl had set up her tent on a switchback and I just walked right by. As I got up above the switchback, she poked her head out and was like "hey, can you spare some water, I though the water was supposed to be like mile 185, and I couldn't find it....blah, blah, blah..." And I was like, ohh, no, I've got no water too, but, it's supposed to be in like 1/10th of a mile ahead of you...she was like "really?" I was like "yyeeeaaahhh". Basically she was like, "yell at me if you find water", so I said OK.....I went maybe another minute of hike, and I could hear the water just gushing down the hill, so I yelled at her. I couldn't imagine that if you were that close to the water that, because you don't know where it is, or that it is ahead of you still, that you would go back 2 miles? Then you come across this glorious source, I mean you don't get water like this until you get into the Sierras. It's just this nice cascading brook, ice cold, really clear and clean...and especially after a day of conserving and climbing and conserving, because there is NO water for about 25 miles or so, and most of that is, you're in the sun, not really shaded and working hard, because you're going up about 8,000 ft. So I filled up all my waters and drank at least a liter right there on the spot and continued on. By that time it was getting late and was almost dark, which means it was almost 9:00 pm so I kept going until I found a nice spot, which when I stopped, it was 9:00 pm and boom, there we go. It had a good view down to the San Bernadino and wherever else is in front of the mountains, lots of city lights. I was happy with myself because it was a hard day. San Jacinto is a big mountain, especially being on day 4 of this kind of hike. It'll really take it out of you when you already have not that much to give. Being on top means that the next stage is going down, which is easy, but hurts, because your knees don't like it. But, that's tomorrow and we'll get down to Ziggy and the Bear for a resupply, so yeah....
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| Early morning while climbing Muir Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. |
