Saturday, May 3, 2008

May 3 2008

Slept in a bit. Made breakfast, then I rode into town while Joanne hung out with Caitlyn and Nico. I bought a Lexan spoon because the Indiana Jones adventure spoon suffered a little in the area of structural integirty (basically the spoon end pops off too easily). I guess I'll wash it and send it to Dan for his birthday.
Squatch then gave Joanne, Casey and I and some other folks a ride up Black Mountain Rd, which was an adventure in itself. 3 other hikers hopped in with us at the bottom, so we were all on eachother's laps and stuff, and then Squatch whips out his mini video camera and starts filming the ride, and us talking, and Casey hung out the window with the camera. The road was incredibly steep and curvy, with huge potholes and ruts -- it was crazy. When we were almost to the top Squatch told us all the story of his close encounter with a Sasquatch in 1992. And also mentioned that he used to be a stand up comedian.
We all ate a light lunch and hit the trail by 1:30, for a pretty steady downhill hike all afternoon through pine forests and down into rock-strewn grassy desert. Saw more lizards today than any other day, and saw a thin slender snake slither across the trail in front of us, which I think was a ribbon snake. WHich reminds me, the day I hiked down to Nance Canyon I saw what I'm pretty sure was a chuckwalla -- a large iguana-like lizard over two feet long and pretty hefty looking.
Casey hiked on ahead and Joanne & I camped pretty early -- about 5 pm, which I'm guessing means we hiked at least 6-8 miles today. We ate Mac & cheese. Our campsite is straight across from the northwestern side of San Jacinto Mountain, the setting sun is glowing across its snowy peak.

1 comment:

traildude.com said...

hey I was there that day and shot a quick video of you throwing a snowball into the camera. The stories and the short ride to the top was terrific. I'm glad I shared it with you and your friends.
traildude.com