Day 19: (04/23) : to 226.2 :: 15.1 miles

We walk through the Mesa Wind Farm in the morning, but it is not windy and none of the windmills are going. It gets hot early and we wish we had gotten a pre dawn start, but we never seem to get up early, especially when we hike late, like we did last night. We feel like we’d die of heat hiking up over the initial foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. On the way up we spot a tiny desert tortoise!! How neat! It is only about fist size, so we assume it must be a baby! I’ve always wanted to see one!

From over on San Jacinto, these mountains looked rather dry and barren, but they’re not, there are lots of wildflowers! We see some new ones that we have yet to see. It’s really neat seeing different plants come and go. 

We are heading for the Whitewater River and it is a welcome relief when we reach it. This is yet another neat place close to home that I never knew about. From above the river looks like a glacially carved valley in Patagonia. It reminds us of our hiking around Aconcagua. The river bed is wide and braided and full of smooth white-ish river rocks. The river itself is just a single channel in the wide flat bed, and has a grayish color, like glacially fed rivers sometimes do, when they are carrying a heavy silt load. We had been hiking with our umbrellas and continue to use them as we take a river side break. The sun feels ultra powerful! We cool off with the water and wet our clothes in the kitchen sink to stay cool after we continue on. This is normally a popular day hiking area, with a nearby visitor center. Due to COVID the visitor center is closed. The center is down a side trail, so we never go near it and we don’t see many hikers because the rangers don’t even want people walking past the center to reach the trails of the preserve. 

We hike along the river for about an hour and then take another cool off break. At this point the trail breaks away from the river, far too soon in our opinion. It’s uphill again after that and over a ridge into the next drainage, Mission Creek. It is similar to Whitewater, but not quite as scenic. We arrive to a spot where the trail crosses the river and where we plan to camp, when a guy appears out of nowhere. His name is Ames and we assume he’s a thru hiker but we’re not really sure. He’s begging us for a lighter because he was night hiking last night and tripped and lost his from his backpack. We are still doing no cook and haven’t carried a stove yet, so it’s just lucky that Jeff happens to have one. We give it to him and he immediately begins smoking. He’s been dying to smoke all day. He offers to share with us but we politely decline and retreat across the river to our own secluded campsite. We find a fantastic spot underneath a huge lemonade berry tree. I’ve never seen a lemonade berry so big and old, usually they only amount to bushes, but this ones definitely a tree. It’s not dark yet and we’ve made it more than 15 miles on what was a hot day with a few climbs. We’re feeling pretty good!

Some signage near the windmill farm. Distance markers are always nice to see. The trail used to be broken up into lettered sections, but that’s a system that’s not really in use anymore, so we don’t know much about it.

It feels like a middle of nowhere neglected old sign but it got new social distancing guidelines posted!

Fun sign 

Baby tortoise 

Beavertail cactus flowers 

Big clusters of these cactus all day today

Up the first climb, surprisingly beautiful and lush 

Lupines, we see them often and have seen many different varieties. 

First view of the Whitewater canyon and a lush tributary flowing into it. We call those green spots in the valley bottom the cottonwood oasis, because there are usually cottonwood trees and it usually means there’s water

Whitewater River and some of the high San Bernardino mountains above it that form the headwaters 

Cool cliffs along the Whitewater Canyon 

River side cool off 

Back up into the mountains, cool colored dirt 

Looking back to San Jacinto 

A new flower with little pink bubbles full of air, a strange plant 

The ridge separating the Whitewater and Mission Creek drainages 

A view toward Palm Springs 

Sunflower seed butter and blueberry jam on German bread. We enjoy this bread for not only it’s health promoting properties, but also its compact size and for its ability to withstand the abuse of time spent in the backpack!

A prize winning lemonade berry! A common chaparral plant that grows lemon flavored berries, but for now it’s just in its flowering stage.