Greetings from Idyllwild!

*Pardon the MASSIVE post. We had a bunch of time in Idyllwild, so we thought we would give you a more in depth look at our trip.

We are taking a Zero (zero miles hiked) in Idyllwild, a hiker friendly town, 178.6 miles from the border. We are a tenth of the way finished with California and a quarter of the way to the Sierra Nevada. Spirits are high and we are getting some quick rest before hitting the trail again! Here is a little summary of our past week.

4/28     After our half day of rest in Julian, we hitched a quick ride down canyon and back to scissors crossing. We took off from scissors at 10 a.m. for a very very hot 18 mile day switchbacking up the San Felipe hills. We encountered our first barrel cacti of the trip, along with an unusual and beautiful plant called Octillio. It basically looks like a pipe cleaner and stands 10-15 ft tall! We had a very windy and relatively sleepless night of camping on a bend in the PCT above a canyon, with beautiful views of the surrounding Volcon Mountains.

Bum trying to grab a ride.

Octillo

Camp with Volcon Mountain backdrop.

4/29     The next day we pushed hard toward Warner Springs Ranch (and natural hot springs!). While walking next to a seasonal stream, we caught our first glimpse at a rattlesnake and it nearly made us jump out of our shoes! We gave it space and it quickly vanished before we could get a good picture. We were surprised after 8 miles of beautiful walking by soda pops and grapefruit left by a trail angel for the PCT hikers! Thanks, Grumpy! Still on our way to Warner Springs, we walked through beautiful horse and cow pastures filled with dandelions and California poppies that were a treat for the eyes after so many dusty desert miles.  The hot springs were a wonderful treat for our tired legs as well. The burger and pizza didn’t hurt either…

Dandelion Meadow.

California Poppy.

Eagle Rock--formed from Mother Nature's breath.

Hot spring, noodles, and BIG kid in the pool.

4/30     The next day found us walking hard again out of Warner springs for a 21 mile day. We were greeted on the trail by a large snake (maybe a bull snake?) on our way out of the Agua Caliente creek bed. We climbed for what seemed like an eternity and late in the day dropped down into a boulder graveyard. We had incredible views all day of the Warner Springs valley and surrounding mountains. Lacking water, we had a .25 mile detour to Mike’s, another trail angel, who supplies hikers with some food, water and other consumablesJ. We camped that night on Comb's Peak but found it hard to sleep because of the cold.

Bull Snake?



Boulder Field.



Comb's Peak

5/1       We packed up and got off Comb's peak as soon as we could to find some sun. Shivering and dehydrated we made our way down canyon 14 miles to a water cache, where we filled up our bottles and had lunch. Immediately after the cache, we started climbing and finished hiking 22 miles! We camped next to Pines-to-Palms highway on a beautifully clear and calm night. While we were comfy in our sleeping bags, our water bottles froze just outside our tent!

Signing in at water cache.



Neanderthalensis



Yucca stabbing curious Adam.

5/2       We slept in until 7 and walked about a mile to the “hiker-famous” Paradise Café for breakfast. It was well worth the walk, and they even let us fill up our water bottles. Once again, we had a day full of climbing into the San Jacinto Mountains. The bigger of us (I won’t name names) nearly died climbing Apache peak at a steep grade and after so many miles. It was exhausting. After 18 beautiful miles, we grabbed some water shortly before the sun went down and went to sleep.

After 3 eggs, hashbrowns, bacon, 2 banana pancakes, OJ, coffee, and water.

Nerd sighting in the Jacintos.

5/3       We woke up early (5 a.m.) to make a quick 12 mile push to Idyllwild. The hike did not go as quickly as we had imagined because of some intense uphill sections and snow. The north slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains still have a lot of snow, (something we will tackle tomorrow in full force) but luckily some hikers have already been through the area so we could follow footprints. We got lost momentarily between snow patches, and in our search for the trail we stumbled upon an incredible view near Tahquitz peak. We took the 2.5 mile Devils Slide trail from the PCT down to Idyllwild where another trail angle, Huff, picked us up and took us to the post office! Idyllwild is a wonderful town and is very hiker friendly.

8200 feet--overlooking Idyllwild

5/4       On our day off we will be running some errands, buying food for our next leg, and eating even more food.

The next towns we will come to will be Big Bear City (ETA: May 10^th) and then Wrightwood (ETA: May 17^th).

Our daily routine is pretty simple. We wake each day at around 6 a.m. and take about 45 minutes to pack up camp, eat some breakfast, and do some stretches. We have developed quite the appetite for what we like to call the “Forest and Adam PCT Breakfast Burrito.” The recipe can be found below:

• Take a tortilla and spread roughly 4 normal human servings of peanut butter on one side.
• Unwrap a snickers bar and place it on top of the peanut butter.
• With grubby, unwashed hands, fold the tortilla into a burrito.
• Close your eyes and pretend that it is lettuce and therefore is not bad for you
• Eat the burrito in roughly 8 seconds.

We hike throughout the day, usually stopping every hour or so (~3 miles) to take a short break and eat a granola bar and dried fruit. For lunches, we like to find a shady spot and lay out for about an hour eating tortillas with tuna and cheese dipped in olive oil.  

We normally find camp around 6 or so after 20+ miles of hiking and cook a big pot of noodles with a lot of spices and cream powder added. We clean up a little with baby wipes (special ones because Forest has sensitive skin…) and get in the tent, as the sun sets ~ 8 p.m. We look over the map sections for the next day and can barely keep our eyes open past 9 p.m.

With all this talk of high calorie foods, it may seem that we are going to return looking like marshmallows! In reality, we burn nearly 6000 calories a day from strenuous hiking and after weighing ourselves in Idyllwild, we realized that we have each lost over 10 lbs. The good thing is that this means we can pig out even more in town!

It is a wonderfully simple life; full of exercise and fresh air from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. The beauty of our surroundings takes our breath away every moment, and we look forward to another 2500 more miles!

Our next leg starts tomorrow and is our most difficult one yet. We will encounter a lot of snow on Fuller’s Ridge and then drop nearly 8000 feet in 15 miles, only to hike back up before we are done with the leg! It should be exciting!

Fuller's Ridge

We would like to throw out a special thank you and appreciation to our mothers and all mothers around the world as we will not be able update the blog before Sunday. Linda Jenkins and Nikki Houzner, we love you and we could not thank you enough for all of your support throughout the years and specifically for this trip! We will be thinking of you this Sunday!

Please spread the word about our progress and for our cause. Help support Camp AmeriKids!

Much love,

F+A