Well, we made it— all the way across the fearsome Fuller Ridge–and we are still in one piece, sort of.  I ache all over from bruises and scrapes and falls.   This morning was a rerun of the last 2 days— plenty of scary traverses and trying to figure out where to go. We got up at 5:45, determined to finish Fuller Ridge, but the snow was so icy and hard that we soon gave up, found a sunpatch and sat down to eat a bar while enjoying an awesome view of Mt. San Jacinto.  The wind was blowing hard, and it was so cold that I finally had to put on my raingear to stay warm.   After awhile we decided that the snow had softened up enough to be reasonably safe, and were on our way.

All day long, we faced one steep, snowy hillside after another.  We were trying to follow other people’s tracks, but the tracks soon just headed all over the place.  I guess everyone else who went before us were lost, too!  Even Bill fell a couple of times, and on one of those times, the alcohol fuel bottle and our “medicine bag”  (containing bandaids, Motrin, etc) fell out of the net pocket on his pack.  He was too busy picking himself up and getting underway again to notice, and I was so far behind him that I didn’t even know to look for them. 

We did figure out a couple of things, though.  Bill finally took my suggestion that on scary traverses, if he just “stomped harder” and left a bigger footprint, it would be easier and faster for me.  And boy, did that make a difference!  I did not need to keep chopping steps for myself.  The only “downside” was that Bill’s steps were so far apart that I really had to “streeeeetch” to reach them.   (Later on, at the hostel in Big Bear, I was talking to Not a Chance, and she said she had the exact same problem–her boyfriend Croatian Sensation made nice tracks for her, but the steps were so far apart that she also had trouble reaching them!)    And I figured out that on most all downhills if I just sat down and glissaded with my ice axe as a brake, I could move along quite quickly.   (As I said before, I did pay a price for this!  Bill says maybe my trail name should be Scarbutt.  I vetoed that idea!!) 

We did meet several other hikers in the morning, and in every case, they greeted us with a very anxious, “Have you seen_____?”  Seems there are a lot of  missing thruhikers! 

At noon we stopped for a hot meal that came all the way from Australia–a sweet ‘n sour freezedried lamb stew, courtesy of our daughter Mercy and her husband Ted, who were in Australia last year.  It was clear, cold and windy.  Again, I put on my raingear just to stay warm while we ate.  The hot food really helped, and we continued the slow process of trying to figure out where to go, picking our way along, when finally Bill said, “Enough! We will just head down.”

So we did— and spotted a dirt road!  Hallelujah!   After consulting our maps and figuring out where we were,  we followed the road back UP the hill (dodging plenty of snowbanks and snowdrifts which were blocking even the road) and headed back  to the PCT. Along the way, another “lost” PCT hiker popped out of the woods— boy was he glad to see us! He was a big, strong, young guy, but when we compared notes, it turned out it had taken him just as long to get across Fuller Ridge as we did.  So I felt a lot better–I had been feeling very discouraged about being slow. 

Once we found the PCT again, we all collected some water from a little creek nearby.  The young guy was so tired that he decided to stop for the day and camp.  Bill and I agreed, “We want OUT of the snow!  We are not stopping now!”  We figured that we’d still be hitting snow at least part of the way down to San Gorgonio Pass, and if we waited till morning, that snow would be icy and nasty.  Right now it was soft.  So we said goodbye to our exhausted fellow hiker and began the long walk downhill.  We still had to deal with some snowfields, but nothing bad, and between the snowy traverses we were able to hike on nice stretches of TRAIL!! 

Finally we were completely out of the snow.  What a blessed relief! I ached all over, the wind was howling and it was cold, but wow!  We made it!  And we got in almost two hours of travel on the very long but very scenic switchbacks down to San Gorgonio, before the sun went down.  I spotted a little low hollow surrounded by chaparral, and that’s where we are camped tonight, somewhat protected from the very strong, very cold wind.  What a switch from 2005, when it was horribly HOT here!  We are grateful to God for His help, and I am praying for all our fellow hikers to make it safely through the snowy challenge of Fuller Ridge.

Walk to Rivendell: Nearing edge of Midgewater Marshes

Tags: Castle Rocks, Fuller Ridge, San Gorgonio Pass