Day 22, Mike Marker 163-177, Tahquitz Meadow

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Hiking Uphill: 3,979ft
Hiking Downhill: 2,714ft
Distance Hiked: 14 miles

Post By Melissa:

Nick and I got up pretty early (~6:30am).  We knew that Skip (the hiker we met the day before) would be up early and passing us on the side of the trail and we wanted to make sure we were up, dressed, and decent before then.  Most hikers camp off the trail but as mentioned in the blog before, it was dark when we camped and all we could find was a patch of dirt right along the side of the trail. We figured Skip would be passing us around 7:30am and like clockwork, there he was.  We were finalizing packing up our backpacks and he sat down and chatted with us a bit.  He pulled out a plastic container with oatmeal in it that he had made the night before with powdered milk.  He squeezed in some Justin’s peanut butter as well to spice it up.  He said he was lazy and liked to keep his breakfasts fast and simple but it looked pretty complex to me!  I was fascinated…by his routine.  Sure looked better than PopTarts!  

Breaking down camp:

First views of the day:

Today we entered the San Jacinto Wilderness.  It was both beautiful and physically challenging terrain.  We climbed uphill nearly 4,000ft and went down another 2,700ft.  It was a brutal day of hiking but the scenery was amazing.

SNAKES!!  Nick spotted a baby red rattle snake hiding in a small patch of shade next to a boulder on the trail.  I walked up to Nick and he told me to wait and see if I noticed anything…I stared for a while but didn’t know what he was talking about.  Eventually I saw the snake and it was so blended in with the surrounding colors that I could have easily missed it and stepped on it or near it.  Eeek!!  Nick happily escorted the little tike off the trail and was excited to see it.  Within a few minutes we spotted another baby rattler on the trail that was darker in color but it was too fast to catch a picture of it. Another couple of miles down the trail Nick spots a garter snake on the trail and it poses for a nice picture for us J

Garter Snake:



Lizards are everywhere along the PCT

The terrain this day starts off like the typical desert scene with shrubs and lots of dirt and rocks and then morphs into Pine Trees and we even see snow patches as we climb higher into the San Jacinto Mountains.  It’s beautiful and I am in awe that we are out here actually hiking and living on the terrain.  It’s still mind boggling that I’m not sitting at a desk typing away on a computer…rather my work day now consists of hiking 10 hours a day and giving my body a daily beating.

Where's Nick? (Hint: upper left corner...look close)

We end our day near mile marker 177.  We stop at Tahquitz Creek and filter water from the creek to drink and use for cooking.  I cook up some lovely tuna casserole while Nick filters our water. This was the 2^nd time I had cooked up this tuna casserole homemade recipe and I wanted to take it up a notch as the first batch a few days earlier was bland and boring.  I had saved some packets of parmesean cheese and red pepper chili flakes from our pizza night in Idyllwild and I put some in the tuna casserole along with a packet of tapatio sauce.  It did the trick!  The tuna casserole was spicy and had a nice kick. Much better than the first batch and Nick agreed.  I think I could have put less chili flakes because it make both of our noses runny.

After dinner we cleaned up and packed up and hike another mile or so to Tahquitz Meadow to camp for the night.  It was a very nice area and there were a lot of deer around.  We found a flat spot away from the hundreds of ant piles and starting setting up our tent.  I noticed another hiker in the trees near us and he came over to say hello.  The first thing I noticed was a huge knife strapped to his waist.  He invited us to come over and camp near him but we said no thank you and stayed where we were.  He was a on a 3 day hiking trip and was covering a lot of ground. Nick was impressed.  We were both nervous about the knife but figured most people out here are carrying knives.

Nick hung up a clothing line between 2 trees and we hung up our wet socks and clothing on it to dry.  It was windy and cold but we hoped the clothes would be dry by morning.

We finished setting up our tent and Nick commented that this was the best tent set up yet! Day 22 and we finally mastered the technique of setting up our tent perfectly.  It’s an odd hexamid shape and if you don’t secure the tent lines in the right spot with the right tension, one person ends up with the tent wall touching their head at night…and it sucks when there is condensation on the tent ceiling dripping onto your head.  We’ve both experienced it.  But this night our heads stayed dry and we were both happy.