Last night in the middle of the night, a whole pack of coyotes went right by our camp, yipping and crying in their weird coyote voices.  We had our food bags right next to us, and both Bill and I reached out for our trek poles, ready to whomp on coyotes if we needed to.  Not necessary!  The coyotes just went right by us. 

We were up at dawn, eager to get to the Whitewater River to wash our poor filthy socks and have a nice breakfast I’d picked up in Cabazon. We hurried along, passing some spectacular, deep canyons.  I have decided that the “C” in Section C stands for “Canyons”, because you spend all your time walking along the tops of them, going down the sides of them, and trekking along the bottoms of them.   Finally we were close enough to the rim of the Whitewater River canyon to hear the roar of the river below.

Down we went, anticipating our first “real” river crossing.  We came to the trail junction for the Whitewater Preserve trout farm, which used to be a no-no for hikers.  Well, times sure have changed!  There was a sign INVITING hikers to come over to the Preserve.  We were headed on, but still, it was an improvement over 2005!   The bed of the river is quite wide and rocky.  There was a HUGE pole set up in a cairn of rocks to mark the PCT path.  Soon we were at the river ford, and it looked quite do-able, but tricky enough to warrant some caution.  So we faced the current and sidestepped across, rather than just splashing in. 

Then it was time for a great breakfast of stuff I picked up in Cabazon, and plenty of time to wash our socks, our clothes, and even ourselves.  Wow, did it feel good to be at least “slooshed off”!   We lounged around on the soft sand, eating and talking, with our laundry spread all over the rocks.  It was hard to finally say, “OK, time to hit the trail!”  but we finally pulled ourselves up from the river and began the climb up to the other side of the canyon.

As we had expected, the rest of the day was very tough. At first it was glorious—”knife-edge”  ridgetop walking with awesome views.  And the wildflower gardens along the trail were spectacular.  I was practically skipping along and singing, “This is what it’s all about!   This is why I hike the PCT!” 

But by midmorning, the trail had dropped down into Mission Creek canyon, and the rest of the day was a relentless climb  back up into the mountains again.  In 2005, it was lovely here— huge shady trees, flowers, lots of butterflies— now it is a burned over wasteland.  Bill and I were horrified at the change.   Instead of a lovely, green, wooded valley, the canyon was a dead, skeletonized forest fire zone.  Very depressing.

In the entire walk up the canyon, I only saw two butterflies…. and two snakes.  One was a rattler and the other we called the “mystery snake”, since we didn’t know what it was.  The snakes very obligingly posed for pictures–very nice of them!  Bill and I are both still feeling very tired and sore from our adventure across Fuller Ridge, and the relentless uphill with no shade on a very warm day was very wearing.  The PCT in Mission Creek canyon gets all ripped up every winter by flooding, so a lot of our time was taken up just trying to figure out where the trail went.  Basically, you can just follow the canyon, but there are other “side canyons” coming in, so you do have to be careful you are still on the correct route.  

One bonus on a hot day, though–you get to ford the creek over 20 times, so your feet do stay nice and cool!  We were also blessed to find one “green oasis” where we ate lunch.  It was one small tree which had managed to grow back a bit since the fire.  We crawled underneath it to cook and eat some lunch in the SHADE!   A little while after we got underway again, I noticed that the tip of one of my trek poles had come off.  Oh no!  Since we’d basically been just “bushwhacking” up the canyon,through the jumbled mess of rocks and logs,  there was no way I’d ever be able to find it.  But Bill gave me his trek pole tip–he said he didn’t need it, because his poles were basically so thrashed  from Fuller Ridge.

On we went, into a very hot afternoon.  The canyon twists and turns, so at every turn, I’d be looking up at the “new view” up ahead, for a first glimpse of the end of the canyon, with a green forest at the top.  At our 3:30 Snickers break, we sort of collapsed, and it was hard to get up and keep going after our 15 minutes of rest.  By 4:30 pm, I was feeling so wasted that I finally said, “Bill, I’m so tired–do you mind if we stop and rest again for a few minutes?”  I hated to ask, because I knew we needed to make miles, but I was totally wiped out.  Well, it turned out that Bill had been about to say the same thing!  We found a shade patch and collapsed for awhile.   I had to be careful about collapsing, though!  My snow-scraped rear end is really hurting,  and there is nothing I can do for it but try to keep it clean.  When Bill slipped and fell up on Fuller Ridge, he lost our “medicine kit”, so I have no antibiotic ointment, no bandaids, or anything.

Finally we dragged ourselves back to our feet, shouldered packs, and kept on going.  Fortunately, the trail at this point was up above the creek, and we weren’t climbing over rocks and logs.  At the last creek crossing, there was a whole encampment of thruhikers.  Everybody looked very tired!  They said they’d stopped because they heard there were no more campsites for many miles as the trail climbed out of the canyon.  They also warned of  fallen trees blocking the trail.  Bill and I wanted very much to get in some more miles, and since it was now a pleasant late afternoon/early evening, we decided to just push on.  After getting some water from the creek,  and figuring out a way to get around the fallen tree mess across the PCT, it took us another hour of hiking before we were out of the forest fire zone, the trail leveled out a bit and we found a beautiful campsite among pine and oak trees. 

The creek nearby was rushing happily along, it was a very pleasant evening, and we were glad to do a final collapse of the day into our sleeping bags!  We did see some snow just before reaching this campsite, and we are concerned about snow problems tomorrow.  It’s 28 more miles till our next resupply, and with a lot of snow on the trail,  I doubt we can make it in one day.  But for now,  it sure is nice to be in such a lovely place for tonight, and good to know that we made it through Mission Creek Canyon without getting lost!

Walk to Rivendell: Weathertop

Tags: Cabazon, Mission Creek, Whitewater River