Tangential Adventures

We woke up in Desert Hot Springs after a night in a hotel, and finalized our decision to head to the San Jacinto mountains and figure out someplace to camp and hike. We loaded up the car, grabbed breakfast at the Salvadoran place again, picked up a few supplies at the grocery store, and hit the road.

We set off for the town of Idyllwild, which took us along Hwy 274, a twisty mountain road with nice views. Upon pulling into Idyllwild, we headed for the State Park rangers office/campground to see about camping and hiking. We were both pretty displeased with the campiness of the campground, and wanted a better option. We were directed across the street to the Forest Service ranger office, and found much more useful help.

After some discussions with one of the rangers, we settled on trying to hike in to one of the “yellow post” primitive campsites, which is normally accessible by car. However, in winter, the road is closed off. We were told this might be a good bet for solitude, and ultimately it did work out that way. After filling out the requisite paperwork (you need a permit for each day of hiking you do, noting the particular trail you will be on, and another permit for a camp fire), we headed back to the car and drove to the gate of the closed road that lead to the South Ridge trailhead.

After sorting gear and filling water, we set off with our backpacks, up the snowy and occasionally muddy road. The snow was soft enough to slow our progress as we hiked up the road, but not too deep. There were a few other footprints and a set of snowshoe prints on our way in, but it looked like it would be relatively quiet. We found the first site relatively soon, but decided to press further in to see if the other spots were better. We eventually came to a large flat area with some nice views, and we decided to stop for lunch before pressing further in.

After a nice lunch alone in the quiet and gorgeous area, we pressed on, looking for an even better spot. It was early in the day so we had plenty of time to spare, and we knew we could always come back to one of the other sites if we didn’t find something better. The road became a bit hard to follow, but we eventually came upon a very enticing looking site, with a fairly dry and flat snow-free spot for the tent, nice views and rocks for basking in the gorgeous weather.

We dropped our packs and headed up to a nice sunny rock, to relax and get our feet out of our boots for a bit. After some time soaking in the warmth, we decided to set up camp and go for a walk around to explore the surrounding area. Nice views, and not many signs of other people were in abundance. We were happy that we would have another night with nobody else around.

After exploring, we headed over to a rock that overlooked Idyllwild below, and provided the perfect spot to watch the sunset while eating dinner. After procuring some lighters at the store, and double checking that I remembered them, we were able to feast on hot dinner, and even had some acceptable-for-backcountry flan for dessert.

We caught a very pretty sunset, and as the sky darkened, we saw the lights of the desert towns below begin to twinkle. A few long-exposure photography experiments ensued, and then we hung our food and called it a night. We talked a little of plans for the next day, and had pretty much ruled out doing the 3.5 mile (one-way) South Ridge hike, so we drifted to sleep not really having a solid plan for the next day.

Unfortunately, my relatively new lightweight ProLite Thermarest seems to have developed a leak after only about 10 uses, so I knew I would be in for a less comfortable night, with some twigs and debris jabbing me in the back.

Here is a map of our hike up the closed South Ridge Road (Forest Road 5S11), with our camp site for the night.

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	1720 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	1988 m	1.673 mi	2h 32m 08s	2h 31m 45s	0.66 mph	0.66 mph	84.96 mph	997 ft	115 ft
Summary			1.673 mi	2h 32m 08s	2h 31m 45s	0.66 mph	0.66 mph	84.96 mph	997 ft	115 ft