Day 11: Mile 162.5 to 178.5 (Idyllwild)

My camera broke and it somehow deleted all of my pictures off of the card. I will keep trying to recover them.


16 PCT miles with 3.5 side trip miles

Today was probably the toughest day we've had so far. There were 2 major climbs with over 3000ft of elevation gain throughout the day.

Today also had the best views and the most awesome trail so far. The trail followed a ridge the entire time up to San Jacinto mountain. There were sections cut into the rock on the side of the ridge. At times the trial was built on top of the ridge so there were 1000ft drop offs on each side.

Once we reached Tahquitz valley, we encountered our first snow of the trip. We had about 4 miles of patchy deep snow. At times we were post holing down to our knees in the soft snow late in the day.

Once we got to the devil's slide trail junction, we headed the 2.5 non-PCT miles down so we could go into the town of Idyllwild. Once we got to the trailhead, we got a ride from a random couple so we wouldn't have to walk the 6 miles into town. There we immediately went to the pizza place and ate.

Later that night, Sara drove up to meet us. She is going to hike with us the next couple days.

We drove back up to the Humbar Park trailhead and slept in the parking lot.