Big Bear to Idyllwild
This post and the following ones come with a delay, since... we already finished the trail on November 9th!! Writing on the blog became a second priority (or last priority more so) while we walked the last miles on the trail as we became increasingly tired and just focused on making it through. We also only had one phone to write, because Miles dropped his in a stream! But... we'll continue writing our story - so stay tuned for some more posts.
As we approached Big Bear and we promised ourselves we were not going to stop in town because we had just been with a trail angel/friend in Lake Arrowhead and wanted to put miles in. Truth be told, stopping in town is always rejuvenating but it slows you down significantly. However, as we neared Big Bear we started convincing ourselves that it was a good idea to "just stop for a meal" because "the town is so close from the trail", and very quickly went from that to "we can book a room at Motel 6 for very cheap with a credit card discount" and to "let's get this super discounted room with a Jacuzzi tub in it, it'd be silly to not take advantage of this deal". So we got the room with the bath tub, and we had a blast!!!
First things first though, we got breakfast for dinner at a diner in town and headed to Grocery Outlet (our favorite resupply store). We loaded up on yummy snacks and packs of fancy ramen, trying to make our food on trail a bit more diverse. We've been told by other fellow thru-hikers that we're very adventurous when it comes to food on trail as we always pack different things, even though we haven't tried them before. After this comment we started realizing that many thru-hikers get comfortable with a trail menu and will repeat eating the same comfort foods over and over again, especially at the end of the trail, when you just want to be done and don't want to put effort into thinking what you want to eat. If you know us (or mostly me, Daphne), you'll know that food is a big part of our lives and that we get a lot of joy from, so... how could we not pack the fancy ramen??? We also treated ourselves with some clay face masks and a variety of drinks, including $1 Arizona tea cans, beers and Gatorade. We were definitely geared up for staying at the hot tub suite. We watched movies and rested, and definitely stayed longer than we'd planned for in the morning because... "we already paid for the room so we might as well take advantage of our time indoors".
A friendly local gave us a ride to the trailhead, even though it was not on her way, and we started hiking at full speed. After spending time in town, we always feel rejuvenated and tend to walk faster without taking as many breaks. We walked a few miles and we met a new trail friend, "Blue" from Colorado, and spent the rest of the afternoon hiking with him. We would leapfrog with him for the rest of the trail, so we kept meeting him for the days that followed. This was one of our most efficient days on trail, as we reached the trail at 12pm, and still managed to hike 20 miles!
In this section of the trail, we would have to tackle Mission Creek, one of the infamous section of the PCT known for hard hiking since the trail got completely washed out in August 2023 during hurricane Hilary. There is no trail so you end up walking on a river bed for miles on end, and having to go back to the trail for short periods of time, then back to the river bed. It was hard and slow to navigate and we got stuck on the river bed as there was a waterfall that was too steep to climb down. Guess who we found stuck in that part of the trail too? Blue! The three of us made it back to the trail and (more or less) successfully continued our journey through Mission Creek. We knew this section was going to be challenging, but we're always a little skeptical of other people's assessment of the trail because some people have lower effort and risk tolerances than we have, or higher. My assessment is that the "the trail is pretty bad" was a fair one. The trail was tedious, long and exposed and I rolled my ankle almost when we were our of the river bed, and fell to the ground. Luckily we have very strong ankles by this point and it didn't even hurt. I can't imagine NOBOs that have to do this section on their first month on the trail, I see how some of them bypass this section all together or just leave the trail. The Mission Creek "nightmare" didn't end here, since ALMOST at the end of it, Miles stumbled while checking his map, and dropped his phone in the creek. The phone was fine at the moment, but it stopped working a couple of days later from internal water damage. That left us sharing one phone for the remaining of the trail (~10 days), which fortunately was fine because we don't use our phones too much but they are a tool that we use for navigation, checking weather and trail planning.
We were happy to get out of Mission Creek and go up again to the ridge, where we camped and had a very warm and beautiful view of Palm Springs in the distance. We treated ourselves to some breakfast and coffee in bed (aka in the sleeping bag), which we don't do very often.
The day ahead presented itself with a lot of downhill, and then a lot of uphill - since we had to go down to almost sea level, cross highway 10 and start our hike up Mt San Jacinto. So we did that, and treated ourselves to an In-N-Out burger as we crossed highway 10. We hitchhiked and Korrah, who was visiting California from Kentucky, gave us a ride, joined us for lunch, and took us back to the trail. We were very grateful!
And it was Halloween night! We started our hike up Mt Jacinto (the biggest continuous climb on our trail) maybe at 5pm? so we ended up having to night hike to get as many miles in as we wanted. Miles sped off in front of me - his hiking philosophy at the end of the day is: if you hike faster, you'll get to camp earlier, whereas mine is more: if I'm tired, I'd rather hike slower and not put so much stress in my body. So Miles went ahead and set up camp for us, and had dinner hot and steaming for me. I got to camp really exhausted and I was beyond grateful for Miles taking a lead on camp chores. We both saw a tarantula on Halloween night, that was definitely the highlight of that afternoon. We also dressed up as ghosts to celebrate the holiday.
On November 1st we summited Mt San Jacinto at 10,833 ft / 3 293 m, which doesn't seem that tall, but you start the hike essentially at sea level. This was day-hiker land, as there's a gondola going up the mount from Palm Springs and it's very popular. The views from the top of Mt San Jacinto were spectacular and we were happy to have taken the detour of the PCT up the summit. But we were more excited to get to town, so after summiting, we descended to the town of Idyllwild for a well deserved rest.
We got to Idyllwild just at sunset, so we were able to hitchhike to town with the last light of the day. Unfortunately our accommodation plans in Idyllwild fell through and we had to pivot and find a last minute place to stay. Accommodation in Idyllwild can get pricey as it is a touristy town, but we found an affordable option. The only caveat: it was slightly out of town, requiring you to walk 4o minutes, or driving 2 minutes. We were exhausted, drafting out this plan from a Mexican restaurant on "Día de los Muertos" and we couldn't bring ourselves to walk the 40 minutes. We were trying to find a ride to the motel: we called the local taxi guy who wanted $25 for a 2 minute ride, talked to some customers at the restaurant that were leaving to see if they could give us a ride, but we had no luck. We were discouraged and decided to head out and hitchhike at night (which we never do) or alternatively walk the 40 minutes. The night was saved when a local guy that was watching the world serries game at the Mexican restaurant followed us out and asked us if we needed a ride, since he'd overheard us talking to some other customers. He took time out of his evening to give us a ride on his truck to the motel. It might have been one of the times we needed help the most, and our faith in people was definitely boosted that night. A lesson learned on the PCT is that "you will figure it out", one way or another, there's always a way to go.
Idyllwild was great! Such a small cute town - as usual, we did our town chores, watched movies and treated ourselves to some good food, including a huge milkshake on the way out. Daphne got the "Death by chocolate" flavor, which was definitely the superior flavor. It was Sunday morning, so getting a ride back to the trailhead was easy. A woman who had recently moved to California from Minnesota gave us a ride, again going out of her way, and we had a lovely chat with her.
