May 3 183.5-205.7

22.2 miles

8,000 feet of descending today. Lord help us. We went from ice choked ridges down to the desert floor at 1500 feet.

We woke to frigid temperatures, our socks were frozen solid and ice lined the frequent water sources.

Our day began with a 1,000 foot climb up to 9,000 feet and a snow covered trail, and then followed a long ridge, undulating up and down between 8,500 and 9,000 feet.

We carried ice axes and micro spikes for this stretch, but only felt the need to use them once- during an iced up decent to a stream crossing. Otherwise we were fine following the packed down boot path in the snow.

At mid day we began our long descent off fuller ridge, a much maligned section of the trail. Why is fuller ridge an obstacle? Simply put, it is an enormous ridge of Mt. San Jacinto and is a 15 mile switchbacking descent from 9,000 feet down to 1,500 feet onto the desert floor. At the bottom is a water fountain, that stands alone in a windswept plain. As we descended we could see the wind farms with scores of windmills far below us.

We can also see snow capped Mt. San Gorgonio in the distance, which we will be climbing on the other side of the valley.

On Fuller ridge, the word “descent” is used very loosely as the ridge includes several steep climbs. If you actually like descending on descents, you should probably avoid looking at an elevation profile of the ridge to save yourself some heartache. There were many times on the way down when we would take a switchback down and see that the trail on the switchback above us was only five or so feet up. Descending from Fuller ridge feels like a psychological test, or a taste of purgatory. We see the valley floor below us, but never seem to get closer to it as we walk back and forth along the ridge. Our feet grow heavy with fatigue, and we enter a fugue state with the repetition of walking. Were we born in this ridge? Will be die on this ridge? Will we be doomed to hike this until we make up for some sins in a past life? Is our home life just a hallucination spurred on by the monotony of criss crossing along this mountain side? We become undone. We unbecome. Before we fully descend into madness, we reach the fabled water fountain at the bottom, just as the sun is setting.

It is unscripted with- “use this water as you would any other water collected along the Pacific crest trail” which seems appropriately absurd and confounding.

We cowboy camp(sleep on the ground without a tent). Amongst the chaparral and rubble of the desert floor