Day 17: Mile 190.5 - 205.7

Finally have crossed over San Jacinto. Looking back, all I can say is that San Jacinto kicked my butt six ways to Sunday, make no mistake!

In fact, let me count the ways!

-- The first couple days, going up that south approach, I was so slow, my legs felt so tired and drained. Was it the elevation? Was the idyll in Idyllwild too long? It wasn't even that warm, or necessarily that steep. But it was just a slog, those first couple days.

-- The Rock Slide. For someone like me, who's afraid of heights, that was scary. That first step down onto a downward slope--you can't help but look down! And you have to trust the rope, have to pull it to tension, or you'll slip. Then right after that the step up that tall rock shelf: I could do it easily with my daypack, but now the backpacking pack reminded me it was there, and heavy, and unbalancing. And I had to let go of the rope to do it. The Rock Slide was pretty scary for me, honestly, scarier than I thought it would be. While Melanie scrambled past it like a champ, I was more in Jessica's corner I think, more cautious and scared and slow.

-- The nights. The first night was great, I could hear the wind, but didn't feel it, and the night was almost as warm as the day. The second night, after the Rock Slide and Downed Trees, that was windy and I could feel it, could watch it rattle the tent at night. The third night at Fuller, I picked a spot out of the wind, in a little bed between two trees and behind a boulder just wide enough for the tent and one vestibule (on the other side I tied the rain fly to a tree trunk that was right there). After setting up the tent, I looked up and realized in the dark that one of the trees was dead. This is bad: don't set up your tent under dead trees! But it was dark and late and I didn't care and crawled in anyway.

-- Fuller Ridge. Good decision, bad decision? All I know is that I woke this morning with my ankles sore and my legs tired and my Achilles tight. I pushed it, and my body knew I pushed it.

In my defense, I have been paying for this up front for a while now. The tough slogs up tall mountains? Did that: cf San Gorgonio (where I had flu-like symptoms for two days afterwards), cf San Bernardino (where I got altitude sickness). Rope work? Did that: cf going up the Arroyo Seco Trail just a few months ago. Snow? Did that: cf Mount Lowe and Mount Pacifico earlier this year, or cf Tahoe a couple years ago for traversing snow pockets without microspikes. You have to pay to play, I like to say, and I've paid already, maybe not big payments, but payments nonetheless. And they enable me to get through these tough parts with at least a little dignity. If I feel bad after San Jacinto--and I do--at least it's of the "I'm not sure I can physically do this" variety (and rationally the space of things I can physically do expands with every step I take, so if anything, this argument is continually becoming weaker), and not of the "I want to get off trail" variety (which is far more deadly). I have learned so far that every day on trail something will go wrong, something will be scary or tough or uncertain. Today? Camera "broke" and the wind was blow-you-over, knock-you-down strong in places. But that's just how it is and you roll with it. Because the upside: oh man, the upside is incredible!

Today the hike was "just" a descent down San Jacinto to the desert below, but in the morning, I remember looking down at the northern deserts and thinking it all flat, before I realized, no wait, that's the flat bits over there, and these are hills over here! Hills! As in, "over the hill to the next town" sized hills! How far up do we have to be to mistake hills for flat ground? And the clouds: there was a cloud layer overlaying all of LA it looked like, and those clouds--a steady fog, just 4000 feet up--were steady moving eastward, towards the pass between San Jacinto and the San Bernardino Mountains to the north, an unstoppable cavalcade. Only by the time they were through the pass, they disappeared into the Palm Springs desert. An incredible magic trick, and one which I got to watch happen--in real-time--from my perch at lunch. It is absolutely incredible out here, and to have the privilege to see it, day after day after day, well, that's pretty special. So while things go wrong--there are no perfect days--and while there are times when I feel my physical capability is not quite up to the task--but, I'm still here, right?--that's just everyday life out here, and you do what my mom says: you take the good parts and you leave the rest.

The second big lesson I'm learning is that pushing is bad. I'm pushing a lot: I pushed to get to Scissors Crossing to prove I was tough enough (I wasn't), I pushed to get to Idyllwild to make my reservation, I pushed down Fuller Ridge because I'm going too slow and I need to get all the way to Cleghorn by May 9--May 10 at the absolute latest--to get my second vaccine shot and we're talking over 170 miles in 10 days and how am I going to make that but by making big miles and--stop. Why am I pushing? Why am I imposing deadlines on myself? If I wanted that, why didn't I stay at the office--plenty of DR's and other DR's and ES's and CS's: deadlines of whatever flavor you like. And you get paid if you meet them! So for now at least, stop pushing, stop imposing deadlines, and just go with it. See how it goes. Try enjoying more of *this*, and going as far as the body will let me. (Or the next best thing: as far as the next water source. Because there are some *long* water carries out here let me tell you!)

There's more to say about the actual hike today, y'know, the actual *walking*, but mostly I spent the day thinking about the two big ideas above. Tomorrow I start the trip to Big Bear. It's a long way: over 60 miles from here. Will I get there in 4 days? 5? I can guess 4, but in the spirit of lessons learned, let's not make ourselves beholden to that, shall we?

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Some notes:

-- Fuller Campground > Rusty Pipe (yes, it's a real thing) > Water Faucet

-- Today I met Mark with Friend Pokey (he has a figurine of Pokey--Gumby's best friend--on his shoulder strap). Mark was taking time-lapses of the clouds over the valley" got some absolutely stunning videos where you could see the clouds curl and roll and dissolve. Amazing stuff. I leapfrogged Mark all day: him taking videos, me taking photos with the tripod. We talked some during these passings: Mark knows the peaks better than I do, pointed out San Gorgonio across the sea of clouds, had backpacked the ridge up there. He had quit his job for this--evidently with a less than clean break--and his daughter thinks him a bit nuts (hence his inReach: he checks in with her every night), but Mark is taking time to enjoy things, he's taking half-hour long time-lapse movies, and that, at least, I find inspiring. 

-- Windy as all get out the last 2 miles or so, especially when on the slopes of the northern-opening canyon to the west of the Faucet. The Wind was certainly wanting me to get down the mountain! When the Wind was in my face, pushing me back, there was naught to do but lean in and push back. But when the Wind was at my back, propelling me down, I found it beneficial to do a modified fast descent: basically, I squatted a bit as I went, so that my knees were always bent. This gave better control for adjusting against the wind (versus a straight leg setup). Seemed to work!

-- We passed the 200 marker today! As I was coming down, I saw Dale sitting on a rock, got to talking with him about his ascent of San Jacinto yesterday, after he had passed Dina and myself. It was beautiful, he said, but windy, very windy. He was resting--the long descent does not do good things to knees (for me it's ankles but same diff)--and we chatted until he pointed out, oh, there's the 200 marker. The 200 marker! Yeah, why do you think I stopped here. Well, this became a stopping point when Crusher passed us, and then when Mark came along too. We all stopped to get photos with the 200 marker, talk a bit, complain about aches and pains, and then continue on. But it was nice seeing Dale again: he had started today at around the PCT-San Jacinto Peak trail junction, so had come quite a ways already!

-- I saw monkeyflower for the first time, at about 4000 feet! And it was *yellow*, as yellow as I've ever seen, bright as the Sunshine crayon in the Crayola box, yellow. I feel bad for it: no pollenation whatsoever. Maybe it's still early in the season, but maybe these ridiculous winds keep all the insects away. ☹️

-- I know what you're thinking: if he's having this much trouble on San Jacinto, a single peak at 9000+ feet, what's he going to do when he gets to the Sierras and it's 10,000+ feet for miles? And the answer is: well, he's going to jump off that bridge when he gets to it. 😋

-- You're also thinking: he says he wants to do Cactus-to-Clouds--his reason for not summitting now--how's he going to pull that off? And I think it's differrent when it's a day-hike and I've got a week to rest up before, and a week to rest after. I can go for broke more. That's what I do on my day-hikes: I *can* go more all out, and I *do*. Of course, I never go *all out*  *all out*--never do this if you're hiking!--but I can get closer to the limit when day-hiking than when thru-hiking. At least that's what I'm telling myself!

-- I'm "cowboy camping" tonight. Actual cowbody camping is no tent, but I have the tent, but with no rain fly, just mesh and a single sheet of sil-nylon between me and great outdoors. The site I picked tonight--out of the wind as much as possible--is a dry streambed too narrow for the fly, so I'm giving this a shot. Lots of other folks are full out cowboy-camping--no tent whatsoever--so I'm being a bit of a wuss here, dipping my toe in the water. We'll see how it goes!

-- Oh, the camera thing. The wind blew over my tripod during a remote shot and the camera fell in the sand. Now when the lens moves, there's a grinding sound. And the shutter thing in front of the lens doesn't always open or close completely (a brief tap can sometimes convince it to go). It still works, but I don't know for how long. I asked Ian to send my mark 6 to Big Bear, which I'll carry as backup for when my mark 7 dies. When I go home for the second vaccination shot, I'll drop the mark 7 at Samys and get it cleaned: they'll send it out, probably'll take a month. Ah, nuts.

-- Incidentally: DR = design review, DR = data review, ES = engineering sampling, CS = customer sampling. Standard engineering lingo.