Day 14

Trail miles: 10.9

Total: 179.4

I don’t think anyone got a good night sleep, whether it was from the loud wind or the cold. I slept in Krista and Raechel’s three person tent to help with warmth. The wind created a breathing effect with the tent and kept slapping me in the face or back. My sleeping bag kept me warm enough, so it was tough to get up and get started. We kept hiking today with short breaks to try and make it into town earlier. The hills were steep and slow, but I think I kept up pretty well with the group today. We passed through some burned areas with blackened trees. This makes the perfect environment for poodle dog bush growth so we had to keep and eye out for that. There were also so many large downed trees we had to jump over, go around, or tuck under. I smacked my hip off of one of the tree branches on the way over one and reddened my leg. Once we made it to the peak of the mountain and headed down on the other side, we ran into a lot of snow. Nothing dangerous, so we didn’t need our ice spikes yet. We made it to Saddle Junction and turned it the PCT to head into Idyllwild. At the parking lot 2.5 miles down, our hiking friend Violet greeted us and gave us a ride to town. We had sushi at Idy Sushi Rolls. Now we are playing cards at the Bunkhouse where we will stay for Krista’s birthday tomorrow! I also need to do a few town chores. My one charging cable for my inreach, camera, and headlamp stopped working so I hope to get one in town. I was supposed to go pick up a package from the post office with my memory cards, but I think it’s being shipped to my house for some reason. I am pretty upset about that. Maybe I can find one in town. Another thing that has gone wrong today is that the dryers here are awful so nothing is dry. I am sleeping in wet clothes.