Day 17 – May 4th – Back In Idyllwild, CA

Bucket here – Kendra and I completed the 27.5 miles of trail over the past 3 days since we entered Idyllwild earlier.  We are at trail mile 179.4. We had 3500 ft of elevation gain over the first 2 days of hiking (up to 8500 ft).  We passed the location that a young hiker fell in the ice and snow and died last March.  We had a rockslide on the trail at one point which required ropes to work around- a little dicey with a 30 pound pack on your back!  There were numerous fallen trees across the trail we had to work around.  We walked through numerous sections of snow that still exist on the trail. So our toughest couple of days on the trail to-date.  We hiked down a 2.6 mile side trail this morning to get close to town.  We expected to hike another 2.6 miles into town, but fortunately received a ride from some hikers family that we met earlier on the trail.  We need to resupply for 6 days of hiking to get us to the Big Bear Lake area.  We are staying at the Idyllwild Inn tonight and will get shower and laundry.  So Idyllwild has been a very cool town to visit and has been good to us.  But it’s time to get out of the “vortex” and head further north!