Mile 179.4 – 8 trail miles, 5 wandering miles
After three days off I was ready to hit the trail again! Stopping at the post office we picked up our first General Delivery resupply box.
The Idyllwild Post Office has this process down! I think this may have been my best post office experience to date. Walking in five minutes after they opened I was greeted, waited for a few minutes in line, then asked for my ID. The postal clerk said she would be back as quickly as possible but there are hundreds of boxes in the back so it may be awhile. As she was leaving she asked if we had any unique markings on our boxes and if we were expecting more than one box. 🙂 🙂 🙂 smileys for the win! We had our boxes pretty quickly. While she was gone another postal clerk handed us a trail register, let us know the library next door had computers we could use, and had printed water reports for us to take if needed.
Once we had our boxes we headed to the Devils Slide Trail Head. Our access trail to the Pacific Crest Trail. Within a few minutes we had are gear out of the car, opened and dumped our resupply boxes in the parking lot, and threw the empty boxes in the car. Alone again…
My first thought was oh my… This is a lot of food! And a lot of weight! I packed it all in and muscled my pack on. Three miles up Devils Slide Trail in the snow and ice… We once again connected to the PCT. Did someone order up a trail slushy?
Eight miles later I was done! Looking for the next possible tent site we set up on top of a ridge about 1,000′ below San Jacinto Peak. It was just starting to get cold and breezy at 8pm as I crawled into the tent. By 10:30 the wind was blowing fierce and never stopped… I slept fairly well with the protection of our tent sideways at times but never failing.