Brad's Adventure

Miles 179-212

Days 14-16

I took a “zero” day Idyllwild the second day, which is just what we call a day where you don’t hike any miles. I had a lot of stuff I could have done but I slacked off and really only bought new trekking poles and made cowboy caviar. I met a few new hikers, including plantasia, an electrical engineer who hiked the Appalachian trail (AT) in ’24 and wanted to also do the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) after this trail. She had got tired of the corporate world and wanted to go back to get a masters in Astrophysics and land a job at NASA. Another super interesting person I hope to run into again. I made the tough choice to skip 25 miles ahead and start with Seth here in Idyllwild, instead of going back to PVC with the rest of the crew. It sucked to leave them behind because it’s such a rad group of people but I didn’t think it was fake to have Seth wait 2 extra days in Idyllwild. If I were in that spot I wouldn’t have the money or patience.

The next day was a tough 3000ft climb up to the ridge on San Jacinto, which we skirted for 10-15 miles with another +-1500ft of elevation. It’s a humble little mountain compared to what’s to come but it was great to not be in the desert and see an actual water source with trees and shade. We hiked with Kevin, a guy from Dallesport, who Seth had replaced me with in my absence. I felt strong for being at 9000ft and doing big elevation.

This next day was absolute madness, by far the shittiest day either of us have had on the trail. The day began at 7700ft and the underpass 16 trail miles away was at 1300ft. There was a crazy heatwave coming through the valley and the high was high 90s to low 100s all weekend. By 9am it was sunny and in the 80s, which in the desert feels like 90. This section of the trail there is almost no shade, and only water was a spigot 12 miles away. The trail was full of rocks and overgrown bushes that kept snagging our sun umbrellas. The windmill farms should have clued us in but it got very very windy towards the bottom. By the time we reached the water 12 miles down the mountain we were overheated, our knees were toast, but we were excited for some shade. There was none. We laid down in what we could find behind a medium sized rock for 15 min and began the death march that was the last 4 miles to the underpass.

This section was flooded a while ago and you essentially trudge through deep sand for 4 miles with no trail, no shade, 40-50mph wind and 100ish degrees. I could taste sand in my mouth. It was way too windy for the sun umbrella. A local trail angel did have a cooler with cold Gatorade a mile into this part and I think opening that cooler seeing there was some left is the most excited I can ever remember being.

When we finally made it to the underpass, we were both mad at the world. It really is hard to explain just how much this section sucked. Anyways, you can’t really hitch from that part of the freeway so we uber’d to Jersey mikes, got some snacks from the market and some gummies I’m convinced are the best gummies I’ve ever and will ever taste.

Once it had “cooled off” to 85 we hiked a few more miles to get away from the freeway noise. We stayed around the solar farm, those windmills are massive up close. We ran into some OGs from day 1-3 when we were setting up camp that night. Spencer, Portland girl, and the two brits, Sandy and James. It’s a really cool feeling seeing someone on the trail you haven’t seen in hundreds of miles/ a few weeks. They said they’d meet us at the whitewater reserve the next day to wait out the hottest part of the day. After the shitshow that was this day we decided a long break out of the sun was a good idea to regain our sanity. We had a plan for tomorrow!