Day 11 | mile 178.0 - 181.2

Slept in until 6:30. Turned on my phone and had a message from Sriracha. He was starting to hitch from Paradise Valley Cafe. We made plans to meet for breakfast at red kettle.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of a campground shower. I took my new friend’s advice and bought 2 tokens - 5 minutes each. The water pressure was amazing, and I was done within 5 minutes. It felt amazing to be relatively clean. I put on my rain gear so that the rest of my clothes could go through laundry.

Sriracha finally got a hitch and we were able to see him. Wow. He was really injured. He could barely walk.

We sat at the restaurant and chatted. His ankle and shin are super swollen. I’m surprised how far he was able to make it on that leg. I had taken my shoes off because I wasn’t wearing socks and the waitress asked me to put my shoes back on. Boooo.
I had a breakfast burrito with a side of avocado that I brought in. After breakfast Sriracha dropped his pack at the campground and I went to pick up my resupply package which had laundry detergent. I left the rest of my stuff at the library to charge. Back at the laundromat Sriracha, Anna and i combined our clothes in one load.
Sometime in the middle of all that back and forth I realized I was missing one gaiter. I rinsed them and hung them off my pack to dry. One of them must’ve fallen off between the campground and the post office/library. I retraced my steps twice and asked everyone. Finally, I gave up and walked back into the library. Sue saw me and right away said “I have something for you!” I was so happy. She has picked it up from the road and knew it was mine.
Annah was at the library and Sriracha was injured, so I was everyone’s laundry bitch today. It didn’t make sense to use the dryer because the sun was so hot today. I hung all our clothes on the chain link fence of the fire station across the street.

Back to the library and thinking about what to do next. There are a few options of getting back on trail. All of which involve quite a bit of climbing. Obviously we went for the most climbing option. We decided we’d hike up to mt. San Jacinto, which is not part of the pct. we would leave at 5:30.
I figured out my food to Big Bear, got the latest water report, and changed the lenses to my glasses and was ready to roll.
Sriracha and I shared one giant bbq chicken pizza for dinner, and then we were on our way. We started hiking at 6.
My period started and I took 2 ibuprofen to alleviate cramps.

We have a bit of a lady gang going right now. It’s Eliza, Vinyl, Annah, and i. We hiked 8.17 miles to the top of San Jacinto. The views were amazing, until the sun went down. and even then, we could see the sprawl of Palm Springs. The hut we were planning on sleeping in was taken by some grumpy people who didn’t feel like sharing.

We made a cowboy camp and shared 2 packets of hot chocolate and cookies. Going to watch the sunrise and hike 17 miles down to the desert floor.