Total Trail Miles: 186.6

Ascent/Descent: 4552/3319 ft

Start Time: 05:44

End Time: 15:30

Temperature: 15°C (59) 

 

I had my best night of sleep last night, perhaps a conbination of being exhausted and there not being any wind and i was pretty much warm enough the whole night. My alarm went off at 4:45 though as we wanted to set off around 5:30 whilst the snow was hard. We ended up leaving at 5:45, microspikes went straight on as we left into snow and we're in snow all day. It was beautiful watching the sun rise over snowy mountains. It was a really fun morning, felt like we were walking through a winter wonderland. We took a detour down an alt route to get water and ended up in a beautiful snow meadows with pines surrounding us. We made good time and arrived and the junction to the San Jacinto peak in the morning, we decided we would go ahead and do it, it was another alt route as the PCT doesn't actually go over it but as it was the highest peak in this area and we were soo close it seemed mad not to summit. It was a long traverse up and we lost the tracks at one point (Andrew has gone straight up so wasn't with us)  but Devin sensible led us up to the mountain hut safely. We met Andrew at the hut and took a breather for some snacks before heading up to the summit, the views were pretty spectacular from there but it got chilly pretty quick so we headed back down to get our packs and continue down the mountain. It was pretty fun heading down as we got to glissade lots and we were slipping and sliding all over the pace in the soft snow. Once we regained the PCT trail, it wasn't as safe to slide so it started to take lots more effort to walk without slipping or post holing and our anger drained quickly after a full 9 hours of snow hiking at high altitude. We knew we would have to camp on snow tonight so when we found a patch there was flat enough for 5 tents we pitched up, rested and ate. Pitching up to a little longer than usual as we had to dig flat spaces for our tents in the snow and then try to secure them in the snow with twigs, tent stakes, poles, ice axes. We tried to dry our out socks, shoes and feet but knew our shoes would still likely be frozen in morning. We had and amazing view of the sun setting and cooked dinner watching the view before crawling into our tents to watch the last of the sunset in the warmth. Tito, Eleanor and Devin's tents were all right next to mine and we endured up chatting, sharing funny phos and videos from the day and having a bit of a laugh before turning in for bed at 8.