*these posts are coming straight from trail, I apologize in advance for typos!*

Day 13: April 20, 2025

Location: The Desert
Start: Little Bear Hostel – 145.2
End: Cedar Spring – 162.7
Miles: 17.5
Ascent: 3800 | Descent: 1469
Sleep: Tent

Today was brutal but beautiful! It feels like it was one of the longest days of my life, but in a good way. We woke up at 4am in order to hit the trail by 5am. It was a mile walk back to the trail from Little Bear Hostel, so by the time we made it back to trail the sun was slowly starting to rise.

I walked with Neve and used my headlight for a bit. She stopped abruptly when she saw a red light in the sky and we thought it was a shooting star. While admiring that, there was another bright white light that appeared in the sky that had a long streaming tail. We were convinced it was a comet until John, an older hiker who is from SoCal, walked by and said it was a StarLink launch. It made so much more sense after he explained it, and apparently the red thing we saw first was the burner (?) falling off after the launch. It was a really memorable and special moment because at first I was convinced it was the rapture.

Neve and I hiked together the whole morning and eventually caught up to Pimento. We talked about her life in Scotland, our hosing situations, our families, and all kinds of other things. It was about 7 miles from the hostel to Paradise Valley Cafe, but it absolutely flew by.

I love hiking into the sunrise and watching the world slowly wake up. I hope we have more dark starts in the future. It sucks waking up so early, but I love the stillness in the morning and getting to see the first light.

We made it to Paradise Valley Cafe right when they opened at 8am which was our goal. They had a large patio where the hikers congregated. Since we got there so early and were the first ones there besides Luke, we got to watch all the other hikers filter in. Truffles, Hangman, Mikenlee, and Gooey all tricked in before the gaggle from Little Bear. We sat in the shade of the patio eating everything our hearts desires until they closed at 11:30am. I had a breakfast burrito, 5 cups of coffee, and a chocolate milkshake.

Gooey’s feet have been really messed up with blisters so he decided to go into Idyllwild and take some days off. We finally left since they were closing early for Easter and decided to do another 10 miles to a campsite with water along with Luke, Neve, and Barbra. We got on trail around noon and immediately the trail started going uphill. It was manageable at first and we thought we were waking good time, so we all stopped for a short siesta at a water source.

We started hiking again around 2:30pm and I was convinced I could cover the remaining 7 miles by 5pm. The entire rest of the day felt like it was straight to hill. The climb was brutal but oh my goodness were the views incredible. I had to stop multiple times to catch my breath both from the exertion and from the sheer beauty.

It felt like it took forever but I finally made it to junction for Cedar Spring where I sat with Luke and Neve to wait for the rest of our crew. The campsite and water source was about a mile off trail which sucked because it added an additional mile to the day (plus the additional mile from Little Bear and the additional mile to PVC).

The campsite is absolutely gorgeous, though, and is easily my favorite so far. It’s down in a home sheltered from the wind on the side of the mountain in a huge grove of big tall spruce trees. It’s majestic and peaceful and there’s a ton of people here! Such a great day but I am absolutely beat and tomorrow looks even more challenging.

Day 14: April 21, 2025

Location: The Desert
Start: Cedar Spring – 162.7
End: Tahquitz Valley Trail – 177.3
Miles: 14.6
Ascent: 4392 | Descent: 2922
Sleep: Tent

Today was a great day but it was really freaking hard! We woke up early at 5am to try and get the major climbs out of the way before it got hot. We were on trail around 6:30am, I hated to leave our beautiful campsite nestled in the evergreen trees. The only issue with that campsite was the fact that we had a mile hike straight uphill back to the actual trail.

I made it to the PCT around 7am and the trail continued to climb. Once I crested the ridge, though, there were crazy views on either side. I could look straight into San Jacinto and see what a behemoth it is. Hangman, Mikenlee, and Pimento all caught up to me and we hiked down the ridge together along with Barbra.

We stoped often to admire the views and eventually made it down to the junction with Forbes Ranch Trail. We all sat down for a hit and had snacks before mustering the courage to tackle another big climb. Truffles and I hiked out together and it was slow going. We ran into a trail angel the first day that said the trail would never be more steeply graded than 15%, but the trail today felt like we were climbing straight to the mountain.

We took our time and actually made it to Apache Spring Junction. It was only 11am but I was starving and decided to go ahead and eat my lunch. None of us took the side trail down to the spring since it was rumored to be so far, but that meant I had to go the remaining 8 miles to the next water source with only 2 liters of water. I ate my lunch and watched other hikers come and go. The rest of the group hiked ahead of me, but I was hiking again around 11:30am.

Just after Apache Spring on FarOut there was a marker about “hazardous trail conditions” referring to the spot where Trevor Laher fell and died in 2020. I remember reading about his story and the Trevor Spikes program and felt very emotional going through this section. I was glad the trail wasn’t as sketchy as I expected it to be, but could still see the area where it would be dangerous to slip from. I felt so grateful to be hiking and exploring this are, but so sad for the loss of life. I can’t imagine what Trevor’s friends experienced that day, nor the grief his family has to live with. I felt very lucky to be able to continue hiking and pursing my dream, and I was very aware that Trevor was not.

Shortly after this emotional moment, I saw some beautiful pink flowers blooming and saw a butterfly. It helped to get me out of my melancholy mood. While the sheer drops were intimidating, they did offer some incredible views.

I hiked past mt first big snow field that thankfully had all melted off the trail. There were several people lounging in the snow and I caught up to Pimento who was filling his water bottles with snow in hopes that’s they would eventually melt into drinking water. Since I was also running low on water I decided to fill my bladder bag with snow and hiked on with Pimento.

It was around this time that two tragic things happened: I discovered I had lost my Sunbrella, and Pimento ripped a big ole hole in the crotch of his pants. We laughed and joked about both while climbing over blow down after blow down.

Eventually we caught up with Truffles, Hangman, and Mikenlee. I stopped to make some phone calls while they hiked on. Matt from San Francisco caught up to me and we hiked the next several miles together chit chatting. I think he was happy to have someone to hike with because he definitely slowed down for me and even continued hiking with our big group when we caught up to everyone else.

We continue climbing up for seemingly the entire day. Although the afternoon stretch wasn’t as steep as the morning’s, it was just as tiring and more stressful because of how high up we were. We took our time and made it just fine.

The last coiled miles to Tahquizt Creek were grueling because we ran into snow. Thankfully it was pretty well packed so we were able to get across is safely without pulling out our spikes, but it snowed to down enough to be tiring and annoying. It also made following the trail really hard and we kept having to bushwhack back to the trial when we realized we had gotten off it somewhere.

Eventually we made it to the creek and filled up on water before continue on down the blue blaze. FarOut comments made this side trail sound like and dream, and it was absolutely lovely! Large sprawling meadows and tons of large evergreens. Truffles decided to wait back at the creek so that he could tell the Luke and Neve our camping plans. Barbra, Matt, Pimento, Hangman, Mikenlee, and I all found a campsite near another large group and set up. Andrew, Luke, Neve, and Truffles eventually filtered in. We all ate dinner together and had a great time commiserating over the day’s hardship.

A trail miracle also happened in the evening: Truffles showed up with my Sunbrella! Eddie had found it and hiked with it all day in hopes of finding its owner. We are camping at 8000’ tonight and it’s going to be chilly. Big day to summit San Jacinto tomorrow and then go into town!!!

Day 15: April 22, 2025

Location: The Desert
Start: Tahquitz Valley Trail – 177.3
End: Idyllwild – 179.4
Miles: 2.1
Ascent: 2955 | Descent: 4402
Sleep: Building
Slackpacked

What an absolutely incredible but also exhausting day! We woke up early in the meadow and were hiking around 6:30am. Our plan was to go up and down to San Jacinto peak before going down into Idyllwild to zero the following day.

We had a quick 1ish miles down Tahquitz Valley Trail to get back on the PCT. Once we reached Saddle Junction we veered off trail a little to stash the majority of our pack weight behind a dead tree. Our thought process was the treat the summit basically like a slack pack, so we left everything behind expect for water, food, and our filters. Andrew and Matt decided to continue on, so our summit group was myself, Truffles, Pinky (Mikenlee), Hangman, Pimento, Strider (Luke), Barbra, and Neve.

With our packs lighter, we set off along the PCT. The whole trek to the summit was uphill, but thankfully we did all the climbing in the morning when the snow was still solid. There were large snow fields on the ascent, but we never felt the need to put on our microspikes.

We reached the San Jacinto Peak Trail around 8:30am and continued on the blue blaze. I thought this part of the day was more easy going than the initial ascent on the trail, but it was still hard. We stopped at a beautiful flowing stream to refill on water and continued pressing to the top.

The final push to the top was the absolute hardest part of the day. The last half mile or so was basically a “choose your own adventure” because there was no marked trail we could make out in the snow. We tried to follow the foot prints but they lead us all over. We passed the hut before nearly crawling hands and knees to the summit.

Being at the peak was absolutely worth it though! The views were incredible and it was so cool to be 10,834”. We hung out at the summit for a long time taking pictures and chatting with other hikers.

The highlight was finding buried treasure underneath the rocks. Truffles had read a FarOut comment saying someone had lost a phone on the summit, and he and Hangman decided to look for it. In doing so they not only found the phone, but also found a battery bank and an unopened bottle of Johnie Walker whiskey. We passed around the bottle and laughed at the absurdity of it all.

We ate a quick lunch at the peak before beginning our descent. We chose to go down the same was we came up, and I enjoyed seeing the trail for a a different perspective. I wore my spikes for the first time for less than 10 minutes to help get me through the sketchy stretch around the hut, but I was grateful they weren’t really necessary.

The climb down felt like it took a really long time just because we were all tired and hungry. We made it back to Saddle Junction to recollect our hidden gear and started heading down Devil’s Slide Trail to get into town. The trail down was absolutely beautiful and super chill despite the loss of elevation.

We made it to the parking lot and were disappointed to not see many cars. After waiting about 15 minutes we decided to start walking towards town in hopes that someone would pick us up along the way. It was about a 2.5 mile walk and we didn’t get a ride. Hangman, Mikenlee, and I did get picked up and driven the last bit and I was able to get us all checked in before the others arrived.

I had called the previous day to make us reservations at Silver Pines Lodge. Since there was a large group we decided to all go in and split a house together. The house is super nice with plenty of room for us all to sleep comfortably. Pretty quickly we decided we needed to spend more than one night here and went ahead and booked for two nights. Once everyone arrived we dropped our packs and headed out to eat.

We ate delicious (and expensive) Italian at Fratello’s Ristorante. I had manicotti and meatballs. We made a quick side trip to the Village Market before heading back to the house to shower and crash. Excited to zero tomorrow!