Day 15
Start: One Horse Ridge
Finish: I-10
Daily Mileage: 17.2
Trip Mileage: 210.8
It was another below freezing night, but just. It was also windy at times. But today I was losing all of my elevation and would be longing for the overnight chill.
Today was all about descending from the flanks of San Jacinto to the valley between it and the San Bernadino Mountains.
In typical PCT fashion, the trail wound back and forth in large switchbacks that lost little elevation and greatly drew out the descent. I quickly caught up with Justice who had camped near me but we just didn’t know it. We ambled along down the mountain together to the shear backdrop of San Jacinto behind us. The entire north face could be seen coated with snow. Still no regrets on hiking around it.
We were hiking towards the even more snow capped San Bernadino mountains, but we are going around the edge of them, and it doesn’t look like there is snow where we will pass at least on the south side of them. I’m sure the protected north side is another story.
As we descended, it got warmer and warmer. It was full sun again today. And it was out in force. Also as we descended, there were more and more signs of spring with plants flowering that were just starting to bud at elevation. Otherwise the descent wasn’t all that exciting and way too drawn out for me.
By now the heat was bearing down hard as we walked an asphalt path for a bit before heading out into flat white desert. At least I just got water because even though we were only hiking 3 miles, from the water fountain, I definitely needed it. It was supposedly 75, but felt much hotter.
The desert got more interesting after the mountain though as the entire plain we were travelling through was braided by washes. Nearly the entire plain was one big wash. I wonder what it looks like when the area is flooding. There was even more flowering down low since spring looks to be in full force here.
We reached Interstate 10 where the trail crossed under a bridge. After drying out my soaking wet clothes from sweat, we mad a brief attempt at hitching into Cabazon, but there was very little traffic on the road we were trying. There were Ubers in the area though, so we opted for the easy way into town.
We hit up a Dollar General which was my favorite resupply store on the Appalachian Trail. It did not disappoint here with everything I needed. We then rolled over to the Circle K for whatever greasy food it offered before heading back to the trail.
We hung out under the I-10 bridge killing the day. I watched ants try to take a large potato chip fragment down an ant hole, and they eventually won after some persistence.
We did not need to go further today based on our plans for the next few days, so we waited in the cool shade of the bridge until the sun started to weaken. We had originally planned to camp under the bridge, but it was just too noisy, so we pushed on a mile until I found a flat enough spot with slightly reduced highway noise. Justice pushed a little further searching for something to anchor his hammock to; a challenge in the desert.
Today was not the most exciting day, but there were great views backwards to mountains past and forwards to mountains future.
