Day 14

We woke up a bit before 6am to get packed up and out for our big climb today up to the tallest peak any of us has ever been on.

Another freezing morning ride in the back of a pickup.

We easily got a hitch out of town and up to Humber Park from a friendly local. This was awesome since we weren't sure whether we'd get a ride or not all the way to the park, and if we hadn't it would have been an uphill 2.6 mile road walk (uggh).

We basically had about 5000' to climb in approximately 7.5 miles and the trail was all uphill from the getgo. We had really nice views of the surrounding peaks as we started up. 

Neighboring Tahquitz Peak

We panned to diverge from the PCT about 3.5 miles into our hike for the day to take an alternate blue blaze route which took us up to Mount San Jacinto peak instead of the actual PCT route that skipped it. The alternate only added 1 mile to our day and the views were supposed to be much more spectacular on the alternate route, so it was a no brainer for us.

Took our first real break up at 9700'. It was chilly up there even in the sun. We chatted with a fellow thruhiker named Bree and then busted out the remaining 3.7 miles up to the peak.

Snow fields on our way up. What a change from all the desert hiking we'd been doing up to this point!

Exposed alpine climbs. We were glad it was overcast since we forgot to buy more sunscreen in town.

Summit pic - we made it! 10,834 feet! Our tallest peak ever. It was a brisk 32 degrees up top but we still took our time up there soaking in the views. Although the weather was starting to cloud us in, we got some great views (right behind us in the pic there) of straight down about 9000' to the desert floor. Pretty incredible.

Didn't get the best pics of the views, but here's one.

About 100' below the summit was a stone hut which we checked out next. I think it was for emergency use only but man was it decked out. It had sleeping bags and anything else you'd need if you were stranded on the peak. We also were disappointed to find some green costume wigs and a huge American flag which we could have used at the summit.  Drats.

Hut

Come inside...

We also found a hiker log inside which we signed.

From the peak we descended a couple thousand feet before finally re-joining the PCT. The weather at this point had closed in on us and some fellow hikers who had summited maybe only 15 minutes after us reported they had no views on the summit block. The trail then followed Fuller Ridge down to approximately 7700' where we camped for the night at a road crossing. The miles down to camp were not as spectacular as they could have been given the shroud of mist and clouds we were enveloped in, but it was awesome in its own right with the wind pushing wispy clouds right by us as the air whipped over the tops of the ridges we were following. It was eerily beautiful and reminded us of our home mountains in the northwest.

Although we didn't see a single cactus today (a first!), we noticed that the plants were still trying to hurt us like this barbed bush here that scratches your legs as you walk by.

Right before the weather moved in.

Nicely sculpted stone steps.

Fellow hikers filtering water at the last water source for about 15 miles.

At camp it was cold and windy and Mike and I set up right behind a huge boulder in a wind break. Right after we got set up, Sparrow called us out of our tent to see a tiny sliver of the next set of huge mountains all backed by a pastel sunset. Low hanging clouds obscured the bottoms of the mountains and made them look like islands. It was too cold out to look for long but it definitely made us excited for what was coming up on the trail.