PCT Day 8 — May 4, 2025
Apache Peak to Humber Park Trailhead, Idyllwild
Wind in the Bushes Camp to Honey Bee Cottage
PCT miles: 11 miles
Total miles: 181.8 miles
Elevation change: 2205ft gain, 2687ft loss
The bright moon began to flicker as I dozed off. Low cloud blowing over the ridge. I awoke at dark o’clock to a smattering of drops. Great, now I was in the cloud, and the bushes were dropping accumulated vapor on me with each gust. I rolled over, concerned, but not enough to do anything about it. Same story when I felt sprinkling on my face an unknowable time later. What were my options? My spot was too weird to set up my tarp and I really didn’t want to do that anyway. Get up and hike? I could do that, but daylight was like, really far away. Ignore it? Sure, I was plenty warm, so I decided to give that a shot. Besides, it was the easiest option. I went back to sleep, hoping this stupid cloud would leave me alone, comforted in knowing that I would have a chance to undo all of my mistakes in town. I only needed this quilt to keep me warm for a few more hours, and could dry it out later.
I woke up for good at 4:30am, still comfortably warm, but ready to be done with this foolishness. Still, I waited thirty minutes for the sky to begin brightening. Hiking by headlamp in a cloud doesn’t work very well.
Packing up was a mess, with dirt/mud coating my groundsheet, but again, all would be undone in town. I was just glad to be moving forward again, wet, dark, and cold as it was. The wind was still howling across the ridge from the west, so I quickly cooled down after standing above my sheltered cove and stripping layers. The thermometer read 38°F and the sprinkle ensured that I was moderately damp. This was hypothermia weather, and it was time to move.
My legs felt remarkably recovered, considering the general throbbing that put me to bed just 8-ish hours before. No sharp pains or weird hitches in my step. Just the dull jab of blister pain and lack of oomph on the uphill. This was all great news, because it was clear to me how reliant I was on my ability to move and generate heat. Without movement, I could get into a lot of trouble in these conditions, but with my able body, I was fine hiking in leggings and a jacket thinner than tissue paper. I don’t know why, but the thought thrilled me. To have the very real consequences of my actions so plain to see shrunk my focus to only the essentials. Right now, I needed to hike, not just to move further along the PCT, not just to get to town, but to survive. Or at least so I wouldn’t need to stop and put on more layers.
So I hiked, channeling my inner animal, going feral in a way that I instantly recognized. When I need to move, my mind focuses, minimizing distraction and controlling my body with more preparedness, like a compressed spring ready to release. I’d noticed my spirit concentrate this way in 2015 as well, though it had been in Washington, not SoCal. During the section of the PCT between Stevens Pass and Stehekin, a nasty storm had brought conditions similar to what I was in today to the North Cascades. For five days, the mountains were pummelled by hypothermia rain, and I was constantly soaked by carwashing ferns overgrowing the trail (you can read all about it on page 72 of Deep Wild, here). It was a traumatic experience, one that effectively put me off thru-hiking for good until meeting SpiceRack. Her love was worth risking going through it all again on the CDT, together. But those miserable days in the Galicer Peak Wilderness weren’t suffered for naught. I learned what was possible. I approached my limit, mentally and physically, coming out on the other side with intimate knowledge of what I can and need to do when shit gets cold and wet. And that served me well right now, as it had on a few occasions during the last decade. I felt comfortable even though I was wet and cold. I was capable of coming through this, maybe even thriving, despite the crummy conditions. I might have had a different attitude if this continued for five days, but with just a half-day of walking to town, I wasn’t too fussed.
The challenging trail persisted, so I warmed up quickly, moving through the cloud without context for orientation. Moving forward was the focus, not the details. There were some cool cliffy sections and a few blowdowns to clamber across, the latter bringing to mind a funny comment I had read the night before, “It’s a showdown. Get ready for the blowdown hoedown…” I got a kick out of that poetry and yehawed every time I straddled a log.
Eventually, a focused glow cut through the white abyss to the east. Was that the sun? Yes it was, indicating that there was an edge to this cloud. There was clear air out there, not even that far away. I could almost see it, and its existence gave me hope. “There will always be sun again,” another mantra of mine when I’m hiking in lousy weather, popped into my head. This time it looked like it would come back sooner rather than later.
On the slopes of Red Tahquitz, it finally did. The cloud had almost broken a few times, but this long traverse finally brought me out of the mire for good. And what a sight to behold. Instant payoff for all the weirdness of the night and morning. A few points of the ridge combed through a waterfall of fog that crashed from west to east. There was the wind, plain to see, made visible by vapor, overwhelmingly persistent and endless. That cap of cloud had been so hostile when I was buried within it, but now it was beautiful. One of the most beautiful things I’d ever witnessed. It rushed and tumbled, soft and violent, like poisonous cotton candy or a deadly pillow fight. It poured, then disappeared into the desert, a perpetual filling of a cup that would always be empty. I thought of all the people still caught in the wave, who were enduring the bad, and hoped that they would get this view too.
The rest of the morning was calm. Everything was dry up here where the taller mountains effectively stuffed the fog. The birds sang, the sun shone through some high clouds. I yard-saled all of my gear, giving myself time to decompress and reset as much as to dry it out. Thick ponderosa pine planted solidly in the gritty soil. I stuck my feet in the dirt too, enjoying the dry contrast to my squishy, damp shoes.
It was just a few easy miles to Saddle Junction, where I temporarily left the PCT down the side trail to Idyllwild. Soon, I was back in the drizzling cloud, but at least I knew now what was above. Well actually, this unfortunately did nothing for me. I still needed to exist in this unseasonable weather, and as I pitched my tarp in the state park campground, I wished for a roof and walls. When this small mountain town inevitably shut down at just 6pm, was I really going to lie in bed for twelve hours? Hmmm, I hadn’t quite thought this through.
I showered and handled laundry, which improved everything immensely. Then I wandered around getting my bearings and looking for food. First the bakery, then the cafe where I ran into some friends who had also just reached town. In a dazed stupor that slowly evaporated with our rising caffeine levels, we caught up until we were all too jittery to sit still. They left to move into their Airbnb while I went back to the campground to pack up and leave. I wasn’t going to camp in the cold rain after all.
But I wasn’t crashing with them either. My congestion had developed into a cold over the past few days, and it would have been bad form to get them all sick. Instead, I grabbed a pizza and headed to my own 1-bedroom place behind a trail angel’s house. I was bummed that I couldn’t hang out, knowing that lasting friendships were forged in tight living quarters filled with hiker trash, but having my own place was a pretty good gig too. As cozy as I’d ever wanted to be while it rained outside, I ate my bounty and reclined on the bed. This mattress was longer than I was and way wider. How could such luxury exist in the same day when I had woken in a drizzle storm? It’s a wild ride, this thru-hiking business.
Hike For Days 