Day 13: back on the trail

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We were driven back to the start of Devil’s Slide Trail and started the ascent at 8:20 this morning. With blue skies, cool temperature and barely a breath of wind we started off in high spirits. The slope which had seemed so steep on the way down 2 days ago was easily completed and we rejoined the PCT and continued on up a further steep section through sparse pine forest with twittering birds and scampering squirrels and lizards.

The snow covered mountain in the distance is Mt San Giorgonio, the highest mountain in southern California. The PCT goes close to it to about the 9000′ snowline (see future blog post)After stopping for a sandwich we moved on up the trail which we anticipated would be a gently meandering path, mostly downhill to our plannerd campsite.Instead we were greeted with a steeply ascending track, often covered with snow and our passage was often complicated by bad turns onto false trails as we mainly followed the footprints of hikers who had passed before.The sometimes deep patches of snow were slippery at times and then occasionally our feet made deep holes leaving us knee deep in snow.After what seemed like endless miles, we finally came to our campsite as the sun went down. Our shoes and socks were saturated and our feet quite frozen with the cold. Setting up the tent, cooking and eating dinner were completed in record time and no doubt sleep will quickly follow. The wind has picked up and is whistling through the trees outside but hopefully the tent will remain standing and perhaps even our shoes will dry a little through the night.