4/1 – 4/8
After three nights in Idyllwild, it was time to get moving again. Another storm was forecasted for the third weekend on trail. With a storm each of the first three weeks, it has become a theme to hike the weekdays and hunker down in town during the weekends. Since I started the trail mid-March, I’ve hit some much colder and wetter weather than I would have during an ideal mid-April start. However, it’s been more relaxing because there is no pressure to rush. If anything, I’ll have an easier time in the Sierra Nevada if I go slowly now.
I texted a handful of trail angels whose numbers were listed at the Nomad Adventures gear shop and was eventually able to coordinate a ride with Sandy. She gave me a ride into Idyllwild a few days before and I was grateful she was available again because many others texted back and were out of town or busy.
I ended up deciding to hitch up to White Water at mile 209 and skipped the trail along San Jacinto. All of the safe trail options would have still skipped portions of the trail. Instead of walking roads and side trails around the mountain, I hope to come back and do miles 166-209 later when there isn’t a as much ice.
Ahead of me was the San Bernardino mountains which are partially protected as the Sand to Snow National Monument. This name was very fitting for the miles ahead.
Although the Pacific Crest Trail is a northbound trail overall, the next 200 miles go westward through the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains. These are part of the Transverse Range in California which are irregular because they are not oriented north to south like most of California’s mountains. It should be a prettier route than walking straight up through the Mojave!
White Water was a charming welcome back to trail. I guess they haven’t learned about Leave No Trace.
Being out of the snow was a big relief. I have had a colder hike than I expected so I really enjoyed when the trail warmed up during this stretch.
As we knew ahead of time, Whitewater River was well washed out because Hurricane Hilary (2023) had removed large sections of the trail. Whitewater goes south out of the San Bernardino mountains and eventually into the Salton Sea.
It sounded fun to walk along the creek bed so I wasn’t worried about this closure and pressed on.
I’ve learned that some rumors and warnings that hikers share are not worth the concern. Most just want to avoid predictable danger (me included) but others try to avoid any inconveniences and skip sections of the trail.
Avoid the ice chutes on San Jacinto? Sure.
Skip 50 miles because part of it is washed out? Probably not.
There was one warning we were happy to listen to – some of the first hikers this year had to scramble up two waterfalls at the top of Mission Creek and shared on Facebook. We researched and found a side route that would skip the waterfall scramble without skipping Whitewater.
I love the section of windmills on the drive to Palm Springs and was excited about walking through some of them. I wanted to go up close to them to see how large they wrre but the trail didn’t get close enough. There will be another wind farm section in a couple hundred miles when I walk along the LA aqueduct to Tehachapi.
After a steep climb, the beautiful views began again.
This was my first view of Whitewater River. It is a major riverbed that goes south through Palm Springs and lets out into the Salton Sea.
Looking north, the riverbed stretched on into the San Gorgonio wilderness.
I walked down towards the river and caught up with Nick, Pete, Ivy, and Travis.
I met Ivy in Julian (because she had been hiking with her friends and Kim), Nick and Pete at mile 101, and Travis in Idyllwild. Nick and Ivy are from Seattle, Pete is from New York, and Travis is from Michigan.
They had camp set up right along the river and Pete had made a fire. It was my first time being around a fire on trail and it was nice to have a reason to linger around camp and push the day past sunset.
I dunked in the cold river before the sun set and changed into dry clothes for bed.
Most of us cowboy camped that night and we woke up with our sleeping bags soaked from dew. We waited for the sun to rise so our gear could dry off before getting started.
We had 10 miles to cover in the riverbed but the miles were slow with rocky steps back and forth as the river wound through the canyon. I quickly gave in to having wet feet and crossed through the creek dozens of times. We didn’t make it all the way up to the trail so we had to camp along the creek and finish the miles in the morning.
Our spot was high up on a bank – probably 15 feet higher than the water. There were huge dead trees that were washed up behind us on the bank. I can’t imagine how much water must have come through to push them that high. Even after three weekends of storms and snowmelt, the river was rarely deeper than a foot.
The next morning, we hit Mission Creek again and had a few more rocky miles until we could climb up and out of the canyon. There were some veins of sandy sections to walk on but we mostly spread out and took our own paths up the rocks.
Although it made the miles slow, I really liked wandering up the creek for hours without thinking about being exactly on trail. Water was always available and it was cold and refreshing to walk through every time I crossed through the creek.
At mile 235.5, we found the trail again but would not be on it for long. We had to break off again to avoid the waterfall section.
After one mile back on the PCT, we cut off the trail at 236.5 and went straight up a ridge. It wasn’t an established trail so it was the steep and challenging. It felt good to accomplish a tough climb after walking in the creek for a day and a half.
The view at the top was incredible. In just a couple hours, we went from the dusty creek up to the snow.
Not long after, we were in deep snow. We pushed through some sections and eventually had to pull out the microspikes for the first time. Some of us were post holing and sliding around and they helped so much.
At some points, my trekking poles sunk all the way into the snow and I don’t think I’ve been in snow that deep before.
We later came upon Coon Creek Cabin on trail. It was only 3pm but we decided to stay there for the night. A hiker named Bigfoot caught up to us and stayed the night too.
Apparently it was reservation-only but we didn’t feel the need considering it was windowless and doorless. I have no idea if its still an active reservation site. Ignorance is bliss.
The walls were covered with inside jokes from past years of hikers and campers. Any night that I don’t have to pitch my tent is a good night and I was stoked to sleep on the concrete floor.
There was a lot of time to kill since we got to camp so early. This was very different than my last week of hiking where I would wake up with the sun and hike until sunset.
There’s fewer reasons to take breaks when hiking alone so I really enjoyed the slower pace and having some time to enjoy where I was.
It was a cold night so we didn’t sleep that well – apparently it was in the 20s. Travis and Bigfoot got up in the middle of the night to reignite the fire and site by it because they were too cold.
We needed to go 20 miles to get to Big Bear before the storm came in. To make the snow more passable, we got up at 5:30am and set out while everything was still frozen.
Our footprints in the mud from the afternoon before were frozen solid. It was strange walking on completely hard ground where it looked like it would be wet.
Getting up early was well worth it. With microspikes on, you could walk at a normal pace over the deep snow. By the time it was starting to soften, we got below snow level.
We were clearly getting closer to the Mojave as we moved north. There were Joshua Trees mixed in with the pines which I was not expecting to see so close to Big Bear.
Looking north into Lucerne Valley and the greater Mojave Desert. I liked the snow but I was so excited about getting into the warmer weather for a time.
We got a hitch quickly from a guy named Holden who let us cram all of our gear and one too many bodies into the car. We had been talking for a couple days about Jack in the Box tacos and he was willing to bring us straight there. He gave us the full run down on what restaurants to try and where to get cheap groceries.
Hitch hiking on trail has led to meeting some really kind locals!
I thought we wouldn’t run into very many hikers and big bear because it is so much larger than other towns we’ve been in, but I should know by now that Hikers are always unexpectedly crossing paths again.
Before we could get situated in our hotel, we were challenged by another group to bowling the following night. This included the Germans (Louanne, Lily, Lukas, Julius), Nash, and other tall Luke. Losers would have to go in the lake afterwards.
We agreed that we were awful at bowling, but we accepted the challenge anyways.
We did the regular town chores together. Ivy finessed her way into using the laundry room at the lodge and also a lower rate for the extra nights we added.
That night, it was bowling time.
Nick had a habit of buying random things in town and we ended up using his temporary tattoos as a joke to look more intimidating to the Germans when we went bowling. Unfortunately they were no use and we scored about half of the points of the other two teams.
All of the hikers went to Murry’s (a karaoke bar) afterward and spent hours singing songs there. We cheered loud in support for the locals and every PCT hiker no matter how bad they sounded.
We finally went in the lake around 1 AM.
We pushed through ice on the edge of the lake that left our shins bleeding. Ivy got bruised tripping on a submerged dock, and Travis sprained his toe. We all ran back to the room and got our floor soaking wet, but at least we held up our end of the deal! It was worth it.
To avoid the very cold nights out on trail, we were able to hike a section of trail around big bear and then hitchhike back into town again.
The last morning, we were mindlessly pulling our gear together on the lodge room floor. With some things going on at home, I was pretty emotionally tired and also had a cold. Travis was barely walking on his sprain toe, and Pete was working out some pretty big decisions in his personal life. We were relieved to agree to one more day in town.
It was relaxing. We wandered around the shops in Big Bear’s village and I took a nice long afternoon nap while listening to Kacey Musgraves’ new album. Nash, Pete, and Travis spent the evening singing songs and playing guitar and we didn’t bother going out for dinner.
I loved Big Bear. We had spent days eating great food, playing farkle and cards, meeting more hikers, and resupplying for the week ahead. The snowstorm did indeed come through, and it lasted relentlessly an entire day. A local told me the temperature was in single digits at night and we were all very grateful not to be on trail for that experience. We went to Azteca twice, the German deli twice, the gear store too many times, and Jack in the box 3 times unfortunately.
Somebody had told us Big Bear was not hiker friendly in the way that Idyllwild and Julian were. It is certainly larger and doesn’t have the same charm but the people themselves were great. In the 1 mile walk from the trolley back to the dirt road, two drivers slow down to encourage us and a man in his front yard was ecstatic to talk to us because we were the first hikers he had seen this season.
Back on trail, I was in for a day of micro spikes, powdery snow, ice, mud, wind, everything. The wind was brutal at the top but it was a beautiful clear day overall.
We walked through a big section of forest that had burned before. Small new pine trees were popping up all along the mountain and the few surviving trees stood tall around them.
There are lots of spiky shrubs along the trail. After so many careful steps, it wasn’t worth avoiding them anymore and I would rather get scratched up than have to go slowly or step in snow.
At Little bear camp, Nick and I decided to cowboy camp in this horse? pen. It was another cold night where the water nearby froze over. I wore every single layer of clothes I had and was fine through the night. By 10am the next morning, I was back down to just my shorts and sun hoodie.
We were finally out of the snow! There will be much, much more of it in the future but I’ll take the easy miles while I can
Up next, we have Deep Creek hot springs and the last stretch of the San Bernardino mountains. I am excited to tackle the LA mountains next and see how close I can get to home before I have to get picked up in the 16th!
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