Day 19 (20 April) - Mile 151.6 - 181.31

Idyllwild to Trailhead to San Jacinto Peak, CA

We woke up in the hotel room with the thought of, "Why would we want to leave this hotel room and the wonderful town to go live on the trail for the next 10 days?"  But up we got, walked down the block for a great breakfast, and headed back to the trail. 

The trailhead is 2.5 miles from the center of town. To get there you head straight up a long and steep road. Now, most hikers get a ride to the trailhead, but since we have now committed to the "continuous tread from Mexico to Canada" we had to walk it. What made this even harder is that not less than 6 cars stopped and asked if we wanted a ride. Some guy working in his yard even offered us a ride! These Idyllwild people are so nice.

Oh...check out this cool Wookie Crossing sign we saw on the road up:

A little laughter makes the climb easier.

Finally, 2.5 miles later we reach Humber Park, the location of the trailhead.

Ahhhh...the trailhead.

However, it is not time to celebrate. In front of us now is a trail called Devil's Slide. A trail that climbs 1600 feet in 2.5 miles.

With the name Devil's Slide it can't be an easy climb. 

The climb was hard, but here are some beautiful views:

We saw this granite face down in town. Now we are almost level with it. 

Taking a breather. 

Steep trail ahead. 

We finally made it to the top and rejoined with the Pacific Crest Trail.  Because of the detour and the zero day in town, we haven't been on the actually PCT for 3 days although we did hike over 29 miles off the PCT. 

This is now a good time to explain the mileage in today's blog title. We did not hike 30 miles today. We just rejoined the PCT 30 miles down the trail because of the detour. 

Anyway...we walked about 1.5 miles further to tonight's campsite at 9066 feet.  There was even some snow on the trail close to our tent. 

We are staying close to the trail that takes us up Mount San Jacinto peak tomorrow. This is another disagreement between Tim and I. I want to climb the peak, but Tim doesn't. We will see who comes out on the winning side tomorrow, but I have a feeling there will be some great peak pictures in tomorrow's blog!

All in all, today was one of the hardest days cardiovascularly with us climbing all day for nearly 7 miles, and gaining 3,721 feet in elevation. We should have no problems sleeping.