Even though saying goodbye is an inevitable part of any journey, it still stung leaving so many friends behind. Due to how the trail is structured, it was possible to get to Idyllwild in two ways. the first allowing you to get there 2 days early, but meaning you’d have to hitch back to the start and continue walking from there, the second was by simply walking there from the trail at a later point. This meant that Coyote and me were 2 days ahead of everyone else. We all had breakfast together and then took off on our separate ways. I really really hope we see everyone again, but I fear the distance will only grow. I am saddened to go out there on our own again, but I know this trail is filled with wonderful people, both ahead and behind, so I should not worry.
On our way up back to the mountains, we met Chris, a guy who found the tortillas for us in the grocery store, after we failed to do so. We were at the checkout when he told us where they were and I ran to get them. Since I’d forgotten his name, I called him Tortilla, which I thought would be a great trail name. The origin story of the name being quite unspectacular and wildly hilarious at the same time (‘I helped some guys find tortillas in the store’), we enhanced it a bit. We are at the checkout, desperate in need of tortillas when Chris storms through the aisle, falls on his knees in front of the checkout and shouts: Stop, I found the tortillas!!! To which the entire store starts clapping for him. He’ll never find a better trail name and story.
We took a side trail to summit Mount San Jacinto, a 10834 feet high mountain. From there we could see mountain ranges on one side and Palm Springs on the other, with wind mill parks around it.
The mountains on this side are much more verdant than the day we did before Idyllwild. The ground is strewn with giant pine cones and patches of leftover snow. gray squirrels playfully chase each other in the trees while the chirping of birds fills the air. A blissful environment. I feel perfectly at peace.
Our camp on the ridge was buffeted by wind that night. I was scared one of the mighty pine trees would fall over on my tent. However, I soon realized such worries are pointless as I wouldn’t be able to avoid it anyway in the dark, so I put in earplugs and went to sleep.