Chasing Wind

authors note: Apologies for the lateness on this post. I have decided to rework the format of this blog as the current formatting, doing a daily recap, is not interesting to me anymore. The following post encapsulates my journey from Scissors Crossing to Idyllwild, ending Friday April 4th. As always, thank you for reading.

After my last post, I spent the day in Julian and camped at Scissors Crossing, a small highway underpass where hikers grab hitches to and from Julian. There began my new respect for wind. In the desert, there is a high amount of exposure (little water that allows for only sparse and stubby plant life will do that) and so wind can rip through it like no other. When I stayed at Scissors Crossing, the wind was howling around us, shrieking like a banshee trying to shatter your soul. Walking to go to the bathroom took great effort and, once the sun went down, left you shivering. To combat this, some other hikers and I created a row of tents so that each subsequent person had a slightly increased buffer from the elements. It worked pretty well and I got a good amount of sleep. 

Upon waking, I packed up my things and began the trek towards Warner Springs, the next town and my next resupply location. To get to Warner Springs, I would have to traverse the majority of a deserty low lying mountain range (The Santa Rosa Range I believe ) and the wind was far from happy with my plan. For most of the day, I attempted to trapeze across exposed ridge line after exposed ridge line while the wind screamed in my face. At no point did I feel truly unsafe, but grappling with such an unrelenting foe mile after uphill mile wore me down physically and took a toll on my sanity. Thankfully, around midday I entered a break in the wind, another ridge line that was nestled between a few of the mountains, and caught up with a hiker, Kora, whom I had met the other day. We hiked together and chatted for a few hours on our way to a water cache. She mentioned that she lived in Berkeley and so we talked about how the Bay’s hills soundly prepare you for the first section of the PCT. Once we reach the cache, we run into another hiker, Eddy from Switzerland, and she stops to chat and each lunch with him while I descend to the water cache to fill up. Once I get to the bottom, im greeted with a mountain of water bottles and an older hiker who asks if I have any tobacco to share. I tell him I don’t but, friendly as I am, we get to talking and I learn that he lives in San Francisco! That spirals into a 30 minute discussion on life, the trail, home, politics, and pretty much everything else. Eventually I bid him adieu and head back up the hill where I say goodbye to Kora and Eddy, continuing on to the next water source. The remainder of my hike that day is uneventful yet strenuous. On my way, I cross the 100 mile mark (yay!!!) and say hello to a family, two parents and a little girl, who are also hiking the trail. Once I get to the spring, I decided to call it for the day and set up camp, but not before eating as much food as possible. While in camp I talk to the family again, and the little girl mentions that she’s only 5 and is going to do the entire trail! I tell her that’s amazing and that even though I’m 24, it’s still very tough for me. She looked pretty unimpressed. As I was setting up camp, Forgetful and a German named McConaughey (due to his resemblance to Matthew McConaughey) arrived and also set up camp. The 4 of us have been hitting about the same pace since the 2nd or so day and so I bet I’ll be seeing quite a bit of them moving forward. Funnily enough, they all speak German except for me. Maybe it’s time to learn. 

The next day, the 4 of us set off, slightly staggered, towards Warner Springs, about 8 miles away. During our journey we pass Eagle Rock, a gorgeous rock formation that looks almost exactly like an eagle with outstretched wings. I didn’t take any pictures, as Eagle Rock is an incredibly sacred site to the Kupa People and they view climbing or photographing the monument as a desecration, but you’ll have to take my word for it (or take a day hike from Warner Springs and see yourself) that its a truly beautiful sight. After staring at it for a while, I began to get cold again, the wind was whipping me for the third day, and so I head off to finish the final stretch into town. Once I arrive I take a short jaunt to the community center and grab some coffee and a baked muffin from a vendor outside. Inside I find a hiker paradise complete with a great resupply selection (they even had Santa Fe Dehydrated Refried Beans!!!!!), charging ports, free showers, bathrooms, and a laundry station. 

Due to its variety of hiker friendly amenities, I also find quite a few friendly hikers and had some very important developments in my hike. The first of which, is that I got my trail name! Two of the hikers at the center were people I had met at the scissors crossing trail magic, Runway and her friend (im so so sorry I forgot your trail name 😞). Runway was a fashion designer, she makes handbags, and after seeing me she mentioned to her friend that I looked like a model (this and all of what follows is a brag on my part. Sorry) and so in the days following, when they would talk about me, they’d say, “the model who hates to camp”. They told me this when I saw them at Warner Springs and asked if I’d be ok taking the trail name… “The Model”. Dont mind if I do. 

Another hiker, Loopy, shared an equally interesting development with me, there is a hiker from Chico CA named Wind who is also attempting a Yo-Yo this year. Apparently I’m moving a bit faster than him and he is about two days ahead of me. My next goal immediately became to find Wind and see how we could support each other in our journeys. My plan is to try and catch him during one of his zero days in Idyllwild. The hunt is on. 

After buying my resupply, charging my electronics, washing my gear, and calling my partner and family, I met up with Forgetful and Eddy and headed out of town, towards another stretch of mountains. After chatting with Forgetful for most of the day I split off and kept walking for 10 or so miles before stopping to set up camp in order to protect myself from the forecasted wind and rain. While setting up camp, I chatted with my neighbor, an older man by the name of Frontier, about a lot of things, some of them very personal, some of them very mundane before bidding him goodnight and crawling into bed. 

The next day I headed out into the rain and had a couple hours of very wet hiking before sheltering in a little cabin called Mike’s place while waiting for the worst of the storm to blow over. There, I met up with a hiker I had seen at scissors crossing a few days earlier, a Russian Refugee living in Seattle with the trail name Glue. I asked Glue if he had seen Wind recently and he replied, “Wind and I started on the same day, but he moved too quickly for me to see him again. He is like the wind, you can’t catch him.” We’ll see about that. 

After eating some food I headed out into the rain again and had a solid day of hiking. The rain stopped a few hours later and I was so soaked I vowed to buy rain pants as soon as possible.

The following day, I hiked with Forgetful in the morning and made it to Paradise Valley Cafe, where I picked up my micro spikes and ice axe (and ate a breakfast burrito). A bunch of other hikers were deciding to head into Idyllwild from PVC since there had been reports of some pretty bad snow on Apache Peak, a spot where a hiker slipped and died a few years prior. I decided to tackle the mountain with two new hikers, Sled Dog and Ephedra. Sled Dog was a veteran of the Arrowhead 125 Ultramarathon, which is a 125 mile race through a section of Minnesota in the dead of winter, temps routinely drop to around -20F, and so his snow experience made me feel much more confident about the section ahead. We headed out from PVC and hiked about 10 miles before dropping down in elevation to camp at a spot more sheltered from the snow and freezing temps. Early the next day we headed back up onto rhe ridge and slogged through 23 grueling miles of snow, ice, cold, and dizzying drop offs. We successfully braved the day and made it to Idyllwild by nightfall where we decided to rent a room and take the next day off. The following day, both Sled Dog and Ephedra decided to stay in town an extra day, whereas I, feeling antsy as usual, wanted to brave the mountains that day. So I headed out of Idyllwild alone, about to tackle the largest mountain of my trek so far.