Trail Day 25: Holcomb Canyon (mile 7.5 of Endangered Species Detour) to Highway 2 crossing (mile 398.0)

13 miles of detour, plus 4.2 PCT miles

I was a little apprehensive when I woke up this morning. I knew the morning would be nice. I would be heading past Devil’s Punchbowl where I expected the views to be awesome and the trail to be in good condition. It was the part that connected back to the PCT that worried me.

I imagined the trail to be in the same condition as the one that connected me to the South Fork campground yesterday.  Except that it was about 2 miles longer than the other trail. And, it would be going back uphill, gaining about 3000 ft in elevation. I remembered how emotionally and physically drained I was yesterday, and recognized that today could be even harder.

I slowly packed up camp and left the canyon and the pretty little creek,  starting the day with an uphill climb. I switchbacked up the trail for a while until I came to a junction for the Devil’s Chair Trail. This trail goes steeply down into Devil’s Punchbowl to an outcropping that overlooks the rock formations. Devil’s Punchbowl itself is a series of unique rock formations created by the San Andreas fault.

Knowing what potentially was in store for me today, I didn't want to do an extra, steep downhill/uphill section so I skipped this spur trail and just admired the area from above.

Devil's Punchbowl as seen from the junction with Devil's Chair Trail. 

Close up of the cool rocks around the rim of the punchbowl.

I continued west on the trail, stopping briefly under a tree to eat breakfast. There I encountered a couple of locals doing an early morning day hike. They were surprised to hear that I was a PCT hiker since they never see us in that section anymore. Apparently,  there used to be tons of PCT hikers going through that route. They thought the route had been changed since they haven’t seen one of us in a while, but that was still the official route according to the PCTA website. It was just that not many hikers take it anymore.

View of Devil's Punchbowl and the surrounding area from further down the trail.

Soon after I finished breakfast and started hiking again, I ran into the junction for the trail that led to the county park. The notes for the park said it was worth a stop.  However, it was .9 miles off trail. Imagining what was in store for me today, I wasn't willing to doing the extra 2 miles.

Eventually I made it to Cruthers Creek, which represented the point where the trail would turn south and start heading uphill towards the PCT again. I stopped here to fill up on water and rest a bit before I tackled the next section.

Going back up into the mountains.

Cruthers Creek.

Then, I started the uphill climb. It was really steep at first. It was also sunny with some low-lying desert vegetation,  so I was having to stop and rest a lot, usually when I spotted a tiny bit of shade. On the bright side, the trail conditions were much better than I imagined. But, it was still a physical struggle for me to go uphill.

The huge thistles were painful, but the butterfly was pretty.

I took an extended rest in the shade of one of the first pine trees I saw. I decided to have some food and put some music on. It didn't help matters at all that I was already in a bad mood about this section, so I tried to change that.

One of my treats for this week was jelly belly sours. They are a candy that off the trail I would probably describe as “OK,” but for some reason, on the trail they are like little mood altering pills. They offer an instant rush of sugar and flavor, and made me feel better. I popped a couple of those and continued hiking.

When I started to hit the pine forest again, the temperature was much more reasonable. Unfortunately,  I was still heading uphill, so I was getting tired and taking a lot of breaks. It was during one of these breaks that I noticed the trail connected to the PCT about 2 miles earlier than I expected. I did a quick estimate of when I would hit my prearranged meeting point and, since I had signal (I could still see the desert towns to the north), texted my Trail Angel that I would probably be there about 7 pm.

Gaining in elevation and looking back at the punchbowl.

A much more trail-looking trail than yesterday.

I walked uphill for several more miles, and my legs were exhausted.  When I finally hit Burkhardt Saddle, I stopped on top and spread my arms out in a very Sound of Music like manner. There was a nice, cool breeze and no more uphill. The trail would lead down for once.

Almost to the saddle!

I breezed downhill  (so much easier) until I hit a stream to refill my water supply. Soon after, I passed someone who was going the other direction. I took him for a regular backpacker until he asked if he was on the PCT.

I was still pretty tired from the climb out of the punchbowl area, and it took me a while to realize that he was asking if he was headed northbound on the PCT. I was headed northbound on the PCT, but we were headed in opposite directions. Technically he was headed north on the trail, but the “northbound” part of the trail led west in this section because of the orientation on the San Gabriel Mountains.

We dug out the maps, the apps, and asked each other a lot of questions. Whereas I didn't know there were two detours, he didn't know there were any detours until he hit it. He had taken the shorter, road walk version of the detour. Somehow, when he hit the PCT junction he had missed his turn and started backwards up the official detour route, where he ran into me.

We started hiking back towards the PCT together, checking our detour distance on the Halfmile app. The detour was supposed to end at mile 20.5, so we wanted to keep an eye out for this mysterious junction to make sure we took the correct path.

When we got there, it turned out that there were plenty of signs. Maybe too many signs because there were PCT markers in both directions on the trail. The other hiker (named Doug) had followed the first marker he had seen which led him in the wrong direction.

We figured this out and Doug continued on in the correct direction while I stopped for a snack. There were tons of day hikers in the area because there was a popular waterfall nearby. I bumped into a couple of young women with backpacks and asked if they were hiking the PCT, thinking that they had taken the longer detour too. It turns out that they had just gone to the waterfall, but one of them was training to hike the PCT next year. We chatted for a bit and then headed our separate ways.

Back in the beautiful pine forest and rejoining the PCT.

I rejoined the PCT and started heading uphill again. I was really disappointed by this, as I had already had my fill of steep uphill, climbs today. I checked the elevation profile in the Guthook app and it showed me I would be doing a steep, uphill climb for about 4 more miles.

I tried to remain calm by this development, but I also realized that with the pace I was going, I was probably going to be late to my meeting point. I kept checking my cell phone to send out a text, but I did not have signal. I was also running low on battery.

Eventually I dragged my body up to where the PCT first connected with highway 2 again. I didn't realize that the PCT dumped out onto highway 2 four times in five miles. I was at mile 398.0, but I had told my Trail Angel that I would meet him at mile 401.4 at 7 pm. It was already 6 pm, and I would not make it 3.4 more miles in one hour. I was exhausted and drained, so I contemplated pressing the “Come get me” button on my SPOT messenger for the trailhead I was currently at. However,  if he was on time, he probably would have entered the mountains by now and would not get the message.

I decided that I had no choice but to press on and try to get to the original meeting point as quickly as possible.  That was going to be a difficult way to end the day. I saw a PCT marker, plus a sign with a hiker and an arrow pointing to a path to the right. I grumbled to myself as I saw it was uphill again.

It wasn't just uphill, it was very steeply uphill. I was cursing everything about the PCT at that point. I was so done with uphill. My only consolation was knowing that it would be over soon since there would be no more “up” possible in the area.

I became really exhausted, really quickly and stopped to rest on some rocks. I took my phone out to check on the highway 2 intersection points again, and noticed I wasn't even on the PCT anymore. I was somehow on a different trail. I had walked all that way uphill for no reason.

That was it. I was done. I pressed the “Come get me button” in the hope that my Trail Angel had some sort of cell reception and could get the message. I would press it again when I got back to the trailhead.

As I was heading down I felt an exhaustion-fueled emotional breakdown coming on. Anyone who has ever done major hiking knows about this. It is like when a toddler starts crying simply because he/she is tired. As an adult you consciously know you are being unreasonable,  but you can't stop it. One of the best examples of this was a friend who completely broke down when a pizza order was messed up after a long, exhausting hike. She could verbally express that she knew she was overreacting, but that didn't stop the tears from flowing.

I knew this was going to come at some point. I had spoken to a PCT veteran several months ago who had told me to be prepared to be “on your hands and knees crying” at some point. This would probably be the first of many exhaustion-fueled emotional breakdowns. I honestly could have fought it off, but I figured I would feel better if I just let the emotion out. There was no one around to see me cry.

PCT marker to the left. Different trail sign to the right. To a tired hiker they are one in the same.

I got back to the trailhead and waited on a log by the highway watching the occasional car wiz by. As the sun was setting, I was starting to get cold. Considering cars were not coming by very often, I changed into my thermals right there without ducking behind anything.

Waiting by the highway.

As my meeting time came and went I started to worry. My Trail Angel might not have gotten my new location, or he might not think to check the other spots where the PCT intersects highway 2. He might be waiting at the other meeting point for a long time. Or, he might drive back down the mountain, to where there was cell signal,  then drive back up to where I was. That meant I could possibly be waiting at that trailhead in the dark, with low cell phone battery and no reception until 11 pm.

I was done. I was so done with hiking, with the day, with being in the wilderness. I was on the verge of another breakdown. That was how tired I was.

Eventually, I decided to take action. I was going to try to hitchhike the 3 miles to the original meeting location, watching for his car going in the other direction along the way. I had considered road walking towards the spot, but there was no shoulder to do so.

I picked a spot on the road that would give cars plenty of room to slow down in time to pull into the trailhead. I saw a couple cars pass in the opposite direction,  but no one had come in the direction I needed to go.

Then, I heard a car coming from behind me slow down to pull into the trailhead. It was my Trail Angel! He had thought to check the other spots after all. I don't remember a time when I felt more thankful and relieved. I was exhausted enough that I started crying tears of relief.

I was going to get out of the cold. I was going to take a shower. I was going to sleep in a bed. I was going to rest up, recover, and then come back to tackle this beast again another day.