We made it to the Humber Park Trailhead without incident. I saw two thru-hikers waiting for a ride to Idyllwild so I had a nice conversation with them. They were so gnarly looking! Before I knew about thru-hiking, I would have just assumed these were extremely dirty homeless people. One guy's shoes had fallen apart so he had taken the shoe inserts and fashioned some makeshift sandals with twine. Pretty amazing. He said he had new shoes coming in his resupply package.
We started climbing up Devil's Slide Trail. It was perfect sunny 60 degree weather. Climbing, climbing, climbing, up and up the switchbacks. I felt good and was trucking along, enjoying the scenery and the solitude. I would stop periodically to gaze out over the valleys and mountains.
Pretty soon, Dennis started having problems. He had to stop frequently to catch his breath. Initially, I would wait with him while he rested. After awhile, I started hiking ahead a little bit to push toward Saddle Junction. About noon, I made it to Saddle Junction and waited for Dennis. It took 3 hours to climb 2.5 miles. Dennis showed up and we took a 30 minute break to eat our salami/cheese tortillas. Dennis was hurting pretty bad and was really nauseous. I wasn't sure yet if it was because he was out of shape or because of the altitude or both. We saw more thru-hikers as we took our break and I talked to all of them I could. I think we saw about 10 that first day.
On we continued, up and up, more climbing up steep switchbacks. Dennis's breaks started to become even more frequent. I hiked ahead but could always see him on the lower switchbacks. If I got too far ahead and I would stop and wait until I could see him again. I was waiting for him and saw a dude with two mules walk by and he says to me "Looks like you've got a heavy load." I just said "Ya" but I was thinking "Ya I'm carrying all my stuff but you've got two mules loaded to the hilt and even a guitar!" Annoying.
I was seriously worried we would not make it to Little Round Valley campground. We made it to Wellman's Divide by the skin of our teeth. It was only 1.8 miles from Saddle Junction to Wellman's Divide and that took us 4 hours. Pretty darn pathetic. Dennis was definitely suffering from altitude sickness- we made it to 9000 feet. He was dizzy, disoriented, nauseous, and breathing heavily. He could only take 3 steps before he had to take a break. He threw-up and fell down. I decided we needed to stop and camp and get off the mountain in the morning.
There was no place to camp. The left side of the trail was sheer rocks and the right side was the mountain slope. I scouted out a section that looked somewhat doable and pitched the tent there. I sat on my tyvek ground cloth, made the freeze dried meals, and tried not to worry about Dennis making the trek back out or dying from pulmonary or cerebral edema. He couldn't eat his dinner because he was too nauseous but thankfully he was able to eat a power bar a few hours later. He climbed into his sleeping bag and promptly started snoring. Since we were on a slope, we slid down to the bottom of the tent and had to brace ourselves against our backpacks to keep from rolling down. I felt like I was in the tilted house at the Enchanted Forest. I read my kindle for awhile and then tried to sleep. Needless to say, I didn't sleep.
I got up with the sunrise and let Dennis sleep some more while I ate my trail mix and coffee. I got him up so we could get going and he was having major problems with his thought process. I made him sit down and make his breakfast while I packed up the tent and his backpack. Then I carried his backpack back up to the trail and then hauled mine up. We started walking back down the mountain with frequent breathing breaks for Dennis. As we descended, his faculties improved.
We made it back to Saddle Junction, took a 15 minute break and then started down the last 2.5 miles of Devil's Slide. Things were looking good and I was enjoying myself once again. Trying to think positive and be in the moment with the trees, birds, lizards, and squirrels. Then I hear Dennis fall behind me. He had sprained his ankle AGAIN. He was laying in the middle of the trail on his back, strapped still to his backpack, flailing about, and screaming. As his custom when he sprains something. It was a bad sprain this time and he wasn't messing around. I had to pull him up over onto a rock and get his backpack off to the side because hikers were coming behind us. I got pissed because they didn't ask us if we were okay and I'm sure they had to have heard the screaming. I fished out his tape and waited while he taped his ankle up. I'm not sure why he wasn't wearing his ankle braces after all his problems. I kept thinking "What next?!" and "Maybe Dennis isn't designed to be a backpacker."
Off we went again and finally made it off the mountain. PHEW.
We had planned to stay 2 nights on the mountain and the 3rd night at a hotel in Idyllwild. We went on over to the hotel to see if they would take us a day early and cancel the next night. They were very nice and understanding and let us do just that. They had to clean the room first so we went off to find pizza. We ended up at the Idyllwild Pizza Co. and ate pizza, greek salad, and beer. All the while we watched thru-hikers being let off by their rides to pick up their resupply packages at the post-office which was right next door. Then we walked (very slowly) around the cool, eclectic town of Idyllwild and just tried to come down from the stress of Mt. San Jacinto.
The Apple Blossom Inn was very quaint and comfy. It had a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and separate bedroom. Very pleasant and homey. I definitely will come back.
The next morning we made our way over to JoAnne's for a large, down-home breakfast and enjoyed the Idyllwild atmosphere. On the drive home, we stopped off at the DQ in Anza for my favorite chocolate cone dipped in cherry.
So that's the story. I feel really bad Dennis had such a hard time. I'm glad nothing worse happened and he's okay now. He's fast asleep with Pico in the crook of his arm.
I shook my fist at Mt. San Jacinto on the last of the switchbacks and yelled "Damn you, Mt. San Jacinto! I will be back to conquer you!"
I got some pictures amongst all the chaos- enjoy!
All of our food for 3 days:
Sausage/cheese tortilla. Mmmmm good!
There's a deer in the picture- can you see it?
Sunrise the second day:
Crappy sloping campsite:
We are above the clouds!
Payday bars don't melt:
These were the only flowers I saw the whole time!
YEAH BABY!
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