Day 16: (04/20): to 187.5 :: 8.7 miles + 2.5 up Devil’s Slide

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We set an alarm to be sure to be on the trail at first light. We hadn’t been walking more than 30 minutes when who do we see??! San Jac Jon and his dog!! He hiked super fast and with a mask, blowing past us quickly. He had a tiny day pack and was super tall and rail thin. I hadn’t noticed that in his videos. Surprisingly he was very polite and didn’t hassle us. What a relief!

We quickly made it the 2.5 miles back up the Devil’s Slide to the PCT. At first the snow was easy and we made good progress traversing around Marion Mountain. We had excellent snowy views of Tahquitz Peak, lots of nice trees and could again see the valleys below filled with clouds. As the day wore on and we made our way onto the shadowy north side of the mountain, the travel got more difficult and our pace slowed. The trail was buried in snow and hard to follow. There were foot prints which would eventually lead us in the right direction, but they weren’t always exactly on the trail and we wasted a lot of energy going up and down and sometimes postholing. This happened especially when the trail had a slight grade or a switch back, that’s very easy to miss when you can’t actually see the trail. We’d had plans of making it all the way across Fuller Ridge to a picnic area near where the trail meets Black Mountain Road. This is where we imagined the snow would end. We hiked until dark, but fell a few miles short of our destination.

We were forced to set up camp on the snow. As it was getting dark and the cold wind was blowing at us, we were freezing and desperately looking for a flat spot to put the tent. We were in an area labeled on Guthook as a campsite, but we couldn’t tell where exactly it was and we were hoping to find someplace a little sheltered from the wind. Finally we decided on a suitable spot and then had to walk in circles tamping down the snow with our shoes. We eventually got the tent set up and got inside. I have never camped on snow, but it was surprisingly warm inside. Our sleeping bag isn’t quite warm enough for such conditions so we put our emergency space blanket over top and stayed quite toasty. Thanks to Shannon we got to have a quick and easy dinner of fresh bananas and apples plus some bars to go with it. We were too tired and it was too late for much else!


View of clouds in the valley below and impressive rock formations that remind us of Yosemite. This was our breakfast view on the Devil’s Slide Trail.

Panorama of the same view

Snowy Tahquitz Peak and the valley below is the path of the Devils Slide Trail.

Easy to follow switchbacks on light snow 

The snow gets a little deeper!

Views on the North side of Mt San Jacinto 

Looking back at the high points near Marion Mountain. San Jacinto has many peaks along its ridge.





The clouds move in we approach the Fuller Ridge area, which extends out to the left in the photo.

An impressive sugar pine around sunset time.

Sunset colors on Fuller Ridge with an impressive cloud bank.

An assortment of bars for this leg, chocolate bars for every day!

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