Going Big Part II

Going Big Part II in Idyllwild
August 13th, 2011



















This past weekend I did something that I always dreamt of. I have always dreamt of running through the big mountains, not just little mountains around San Diego but mountains that have 5 digits (10,000Ft +) There is something that draws me to the big mountains. No camera shot can do it justice. Just large amounts of earth!

Kasia and I plan on running the Rae Lake Loop this September 24th. This loop is no joke and this past hike/run showed me that. So we planned to kick it up a notch from our last hike in the Idyllwild area and loop a couple of trails to make something 20 miles + in order to prep for Rae Lake.

http://joshuadinen.blogspot.com/2011/07/getting-ready-to-go-big.html

I busted out my Tom Harrison map of the Idyllwild area and decided on parking in Idyllwild early style
6:30AM



















We walked over to the Deer Springs Trail and headed up towards the summit of San Jacinto. We figured we had around 5800 vertical feet of climbing and almost 11 miles. We hiked along the road and found the trailhead easily because of the signs on the side of the road.

I love early mornings on the trail. It is amazing since most people don’t plan and decide to do it. So it was a couple hours before we saw a person. But we were bugged the whole time by annoying flies that would not leave us alone. We passed a bunch of places that we could filter water but I had planned on filtering at Deer Springs so I waited. Info to anyone hiking the west side of San Jacinto from Idyllwild – there is a lot of water and plenty of places to filter.

We got in a groove and busted out a bunch of miles and vertical feet. I love climbing higher and higher. The views get better and better and knowing I was headed to the 2nd highest peak in all of Southern California made me push.

We then hit a trail junction and were on the PCT. I love hiking parts of it and hope to do the entire through hike with Kasia someday. Next we came up on a backcountry camp at Deer Springs. We saw a bunch of campsites with people and a fire. We used the SteriPen to filter a couple liters but we had only drunk about a liter and a half so were done quickly and back on the trail.

Next was little Round Valley. We had hiked and camped there a couple years ago prepping for an assault of Mt. Whitney. It was good to be back in the valley. It is a sweet place with water and a porta potty. That’s right a port potty out in the middle of nowhere. I bet they flew it in with a helicopter.

We started to feel hungry but pushed up to the summit to eat lunch. We figured it would be better to hike down after a full stomach than hike up a hill. There is a cool rock hut built up near the summit so we sat right next to it and enjoyed the views of Palm Springs and ate a couple turkey sandies and potato chips.



















Back on the trail pretty quickly knowing we have over 10+ miles to get back to the car. Our pace was quick after lunch feeling the fuel. We hit the Wellman Cienega and refilled our water reservoirs for the last time using our SteriPen. I then collapsed my poles and talked Kasia into running back to our car. It felt amazing to start running. My legs actually started to feel better when the blood really started to travel to my legs.



We then got stopped by some rangers and had to show them the permit we got earlier that morning. They kind of looked at us funny having to stop us from our running out in the middle of nowhere. After this we got into a groove and got off the trails before we knew it. We then had to run 3 or 4 miles back to our car on the roads but roads felt super easy after running down the trails. We ran for a total of about 8 or 9 miles and traveled 22 miles total. We had gone up and down almost 12,000 vertical feet and it took just shy of 8 hours on the go.

It felt good to be back at our car but I thought wow that was not even half of Rae Lake Loop. What have I gotten us into? We shall see…….

Next is a weeklong backpacking trip on the High Sierra Trail in Sequoia. We plan on doing 150 miles in 8 days.

After that we plan on attempting our first 50K race in Big Bear - http://endurebear.wordpress.com/

After that it is Rae Lake Loop on September 24th.