PCT mile 277.7 to PCT mile 183.5
Section mileage: 101.5
Days: 10/19 - 10/26
We kept putting off our departure from Big Bear. Finally, after stuffing our faces with pizza and cups of soda, Tink drove us to the trailhead of the Cougar Crest Trail. A man returned to his pickup with his dog. "Where are you going?" He asked enthusiastically. We told him, but were anxious to get hiking, so left him and Tink to talk. The sun was waning. Back in May, we had started from this very parking lot with 7 liters of water apiece, hiking by headlamp up the mountain. I remember thinking how important it was to get to the PCT to camp, to get a fresh start in the morning. I remember thinking how steep the trail was, not believing that I could become an efficient hiking machine.
The trail, now, was easy. Behind us, the sunset over the lake.
The next morning, we set out into the high desert. South this time, counting down the 277.7 miles towards Mexico. It was cool in the shade, hot in the sun. We were sore after three weeks off, and took lots of breaks. Soon, we ran into another couple of true SOBOs: Dormouse and Dirtstew. They were just as surprised to see us, telling us the we were the first PCT hikers they'd seen in awhile. We bid them goodbye as they hiked farther south. We stopped after 19 miles in a valley in the shade of bright yellow aspen trees to sleep by a cold trickle of a stream. I didn't sleep well; the desert nights are cold and I woke up over and over to pull my bag closer to trap warm air inside.
We didn't start until 11 am the next day, which is obscenely late by PCT standards. When we did start, we hiked almost a mile when I realized I had left my camera on a rock. By the time I'd run back and returned to my pack, it was afternoon. We felt lazy and sluggish. Next to the trail, we passed a fenced off area. Inside, we could see captive carnivores. A grizzly bear, tiger, lion. Each lived in a little cage twice its length, and paced incessantly back and forth. They seemed oblivious to our gaping stares. These animals are apparently "stunt" animals used for Hollywood films. It depressed us, and not long after passing them, we decided to stop for the night, a mere 9 miles into our day.
The next day, we started early to make up for lost time. The trail descended into Mission Creek valley, and the sun was hot. As it wove back and forth across the creek, the trail kept disappearing into willow and invasive cattail thickets. We would emerge into the glaring desert sun with no sign of trail ahead, and have to double back and spilt up to find out where we'd gone rogue. "Found it!" One of us would yell and we'd move on until the next stream crossing, where it would all repeat. We emerged from a canyon with tall, metamorphic rock walls to find the perfect camping spot. A small waterfall fell into a pool knee-deep. We set up our tent on soft sand in our little desert paradise, taking turns half emerging in the stream.
We made a double tea bag breakfast before leaving our paradise. The weather was blindingly, suffocatingly hot. I climbed up and out of the Mission Creek valley listening to history podcasts about true life princesses and gangsters. The landscape was barren with shrubs and cacti. The trail led us down a winding catwalk into a white sand desert in a flat river valley surrounded by more barren ridges. Down the center ran the silty Whitewater Creek. The water was too silty to drink so we decided to take a short detour to a preserve. Where there was supposedly a wading pool... From the trail, we could see a cluster of palm trees marking paradise like tall imperialistic flags in the desert.
A group of forty or so kids were running around. There were outlets and potable water and even the fabled wading pool. We camped out in the grass with thousands of tiny ants. The flashlights of the children excitedly bobbed back and forth between their camp and the bathrooms.
At six the next morning, we set off into the groggy, dim dawn. The trail led us up a canyon and along ridges with deep sand and confusing side trails branching off in all directions marked with cow patties. "Rogue cattle, escaped from the reservation," a trail maintainer would tell us later, "they've been breeding in the hills, feral for generations." On the other side of the ridge, the horizon was blanketed with rows of wind turbines churning mechanically. We excitedly took big steps into deep sand, climbing down into civilization. Beyond the wind farm was our goal: a twenty story casino.
First we needed to pass through Cabazon, which began on the edge of the desert with dilapidated trailers seemingly rising out of the sand. No one was outside, although most of the houses had cars in the driveways and angry dogs snarling at the fences. We found a patch of shade for some relief from the heat, so that Craig could look up directions to the casino.
"That's ironic," he said, looking down at his phone.
"What?" I asked irritably. The sun was getting to me.
"The only business in town is a paving company." I looked around. All of the roads we'd come to so far were only paved with dust. We headed in the right direction, joining up with the one paved road in town. It was five lanes wide and completely empty, save for rows of neglected palm trees that lined the street.
"Do you think they're trying to be another Palm Springs?" I quipped. At the highway, we got our answer. A faded sign welcomed visitors to "West Palm Springs". Luckily it didn't take long to catch a ride to the casino, where we were the sole dirty hikers at this roadside destination. It was a Friday, and tourists were pouring in for the weekend. We waited out the heat of the day at the strangely 50s themed restaurants, surrounded by the modernity of the twenty story casino on one side and an outlet mall on the other side. I spilled a cup of hot coffee on my lap. Craig left a trail of little ants everywhere he set his pack. We didn't belong here, even if there were milkshakes.
We hitched back to the trail by still-hot dusk and set off into the desert, the interstate getting smaller and smaller in the distance. We only traveled a few miles farther to a faucet at the base of Mt San Jacinto.
We woke at 4 am to start our climb in the dark. We had a long fifteen mile climb tomorrow and wanted to get an early start to beat the heat. A couple miles in, our headlamps met another in the dark. A older man with wide eyes was descending the mountain. Strapped to his chest was a two liter bottle half full of brown water. Craig and him were talking, but I wasn't listening. I was staring at that bottle. As we exchanged parting words, he turned back and added, "you two have enough water, right?" We nodded. "Because you have another 18 miles to the next source." We knew this, of course. He tapped the bottle, "I didn't get enough water, so I've been filtering my piss. Not bad with some Kool-aid powder."
We waited until he was out of earshot to start laughing in horror. The mountain was alive pre dawn. I almost stepped on a tarantula the size of my fist. A cute skunk wobbled across the trail. An owl flew away silently at our approach. The eyes of a huge jackrabbit (or jackalope or jackacougar) glowed at us down slope. We even heard the loud SHHHHHH of a rattlesnake in the distance. By the time the sun rose at 6:30, we were well into our climb. And still we kept climbing. A total of 8,000 feet of switchbacks, from ecosystem to ecosystem, out of the desert, past grassy fields, under a canopy of tall pines. We camped at Strawberry Junction.
The next morning, we walked down to Idyllwild to find breakfast. The first business we saw in town advertised "CHAMPAGNE BREAKFAST BUFFET! Sundays". It was a Sunday. What a miracle.
