Sat June 6, 2009

After quite the windy night, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise over Palm Springs area, packed up and got walking northward again. Cold morning, no one else on the trail, just amazing views all around, walked through the small section of trail that was on fire last year (1 mile out of the 39) near Apache Peak. Didn't go down to the Apache spring as we didn't need water and we heard it was quite the elevation drop to get there. Meandered along, following the trail, enjoying every step of it. Came to Saddle Junction around noon, lots of hikers here, had a bite to eat and decided to keep walking. Found a great little spot to camp around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and called it quits for the day. 15 miles for the day only left us 8 to get to Black Mtn Rd in the morning.

Friday June 5, 2009

We were up bright and early on Friday, drove to the trailhead and started our 39 mile walk to Black Mtn Rd. Chilly morning, but we moved right along, taking lots of pictures and enjoying being back on the trail again. As we climbed higher up the ridge the views were awesome, we could look back and see the trail to the south, peaks all around, the Saltan Sea, just beautiful. The wind picked up in the afternoon and made it cold on the shaded side of the mtn, but still roasting on the sunny side. We stopped at Fobes Saddle for water, Neighbor got us 4 liters with no problem, I stayed with our packs at the junction and flipped through the trail register of whose been through the area, fun to see all the 2009 PCT hikers and their comments. We noticed another message for today's date and come to find out "Nitro Joe" PCT 2008 was out here hiking also hiking these missed miles from last year!! Small world. After the climb out of the saddle, we hiked a few more miles to Spitler Peak and found a great camp spot off the trail, with a nice view of San Jacinto and all of the Palm Springs area. Had some dinner and called it quits, quite early for the day (around 3pm.......but we were trying to stay on east coast time!!) Made it 16 miles for the day, not too bad!

The ridge we'll soon be hiking over!

June 4th, 2009

It was finally time to head back out west and hike a few of those miles of the PCT that were closed due to wildfires last year! We decided to start with the 39 miles around San Jacinto/Fuller Ridge area. So, we flew to San Diego on Thursday 6/4/09, picked up our rental car with Enterprise (Neighbor and Dave the Enterprise man in photo) and drove north to Idyllwild to camp in the state park for the night. Long day of travelling, I think we were sleeping by 6pm (west coast time......would have been 9pm for us!!)