I woke up and it wasn’t cold, a novelty. As we hiked the valley between the San Jacinto mountains and Whitewater preserve, we got our first taste of real desert heat. The bridge of the I10 provided some temporary relief and to our surprise, we found a hikerbox and a cooler with drinks there. Only on the pct can you have a beer under an overpass at 7h20 in the morning in a rusty old chair and still feel like a king. Lots of people chose to hitch into Cabazon from there, but we went on, hoping to avoid the worst heat and get to whitewater river early.
After a lot of hours sweating away under the sun, the whitewater river, the first on this trail, was a welcome sight. We jumped in, clothes and all, trying to submerge our whole body in the tepid, fast streaming water.
The afternoon was spent there, under a makeshift shelter made from Coyote’s groundsheet, in an attempt to provide some, for this region, very elusive shade. Chris (I will keep calling him Tortilla) and Boots joined us eventually, with others following suit. Big Spoon and Squeezy had filled their water bladders with tequila in Cabazon and shared it with us all, to celebrate cinqo de mayo.
It seemed like a proper feast, everyone with their feet in the river, eating snacks and drinking tequila. At around 18h30, the party ended and Chris, Boots, Coyote, Caveman and I pushed on for a couple more hours so we would make it to Big Bear in time. It quickly got dark and we had our first bout of night hiking. Coyote’s headlamp broke halfway through and we had to share mine, he walking closely to me in order to have light. It’s strange how the path changes at night, a more mysterious mood pervading everything. In the distance, the city lights of Palm Springs shone with a bright otherworldly light.
Suddenly a rare milksnake (?) popped up on our path.
We arrived at the campsite late at night, ate with Chris and Boots and went to sleep.
Coolest new hiker and trail name of the day: Daddy Longlegs