Fell asleep at about 9:30 last night (really late these days) and there was a light mist falling. Woke up at 11:00 to a substantial gust and pouring rain… whoopee! A few other tents lit up as people checked to make sure their tents were still ok. I checked mine for about an hour before finally deciding that I had set it up well enough that it wasn’t going to leak too much. The drainage that I had dug out before sleeping ended up saving me from a decent flood, so I had a good night. Others were not so lucky- one person had their tent fill with water to the point that their gear was floating… whoops!
Some people are going stir crazy today and some have headed up against recommendations of fellow hikers and also the park rangers. Winds are still quite strong with 50-75mph gusts hitting fuller ridge still. Some may call me lazy, but I don’t really feel like I need to “experience nature” more than I have to.
Taking a 3rd zero is ok, but I am looking forward to meeting up with a friend in 2 days and making more progress to the cold North. I was able to drink 4-5 cups of coffee as the clouds blew through town, and I am just hopping between warm places and my warm tent. Also repaired my shoes which have developed a tear near the toe on my left foot. Nothing that I would be concerned with normally but I will be doing some snow travel tomorrow and would like to be able to keep my feet warm. The promise of low 50F weather is looking quite nice and the wind is supposed to die down before I get to the ridge.

Just got the news of possible new snow in idyllwild tomorrow night. We are still a day earlier than we had scheduled due to the fire closure so two zeros might be what we do. Saturday is looking nicer so I am planning on heading out then. So far this town is totally awesome and the people are nice. Might send out some postcards later today when I refresh my vitamin I at the drug store. Rashes on my hands are liking the a sense of sun at the laundromat! Catdog has left for kickoff but we may meet again up the trail

The people at warner springs resource center are amazing and make food for hikers from 8am to 4pm. I ended up eating 2 burgers, one for lunch and the other for dinner. It is a fundraiser for them and they graciously donate their time to the cause. The burgers were delicious. We are now all huddled under an oak tree in our tents just outside warner springs. We took a wrong turn rather stupidly and figured the center would be within city limits…. apparently not. We were done with 18mi before 1pm and had a relaxing day after the town rush.

Tomorrow is resupply day along with pancakes, eggs, sausage, and orange juice. Might have to peel me away from the town… but I only plan on 5 miles tomorrow.

 

Had a fun day today, did about 17 miles through barrel cactus filled slopes, hiked mostly alone but bumped into katdog and other nice folks. The reward for pushing further today is the hope of making it to warner springs tomorrow where a fundraiser is washing hikers and their clothing. As long as we make it there before 4pm… we can buy burgers as well which sets us up well for pancakes and resupplies in the morning. Current hope is to be on trail at 5 tomorrow morning, packing is getting easier as we are all running low on food thankfully. I did manage to give away some food weight to other hikers… suckers! 🙂

The picture above is where I am writing this now, high up on a mountain. Now… sleep and hopefully burgers tomorrow!