Top o the rock!
We wanted to go camping somewhere close, so we picked Idyllwild. It’s only about 2 hours from OC and an easy drive as long as you wait until after traffic dies down.
I’ve never been to Idyllwild before. Hearsay had preceded it as a somewhat wealthy place, artsy, good for weekend getaways, very pretty. There’s a famous “Cactus to Clouds” hike for the hearty that starts in Palm Springs and ascends 10,200 feet in about 14 miles. For those with less endurance a cable car travels to the summit and deposits sightseers at a restaurant.
Being somewhat out of practice, we opted for the shorter Suicide Rock hike, which ascends 2,000 feet in about 4 miles to a lookout point with a hard-to-believe legend about an indian princes who leaped to her death when her father the chief wouldn’t let her marry her lover.
Indians did once live in the area, morteros testify to their history there. It’s easy to imagine them in their summer camps, hunting animals in the pine covered mountains.
The San Jacinto mountains gave me the impression of being a very small, steep range. The drive up was mostly tight turns, and we went up several thousand feet before reaching any area flat enough to build on. Up one side and then over looking down the other happened pretty quickly. It’s not a vast mountain range, but big enough to create an interesting retreat from the hot summers in the valleys below, and a winter layer of snow.
Cleanest campground bathroom…ever!
We camped at Idyllwild campground, a small place just on the edge of town. It was too small and compact to be John Muir’s dream destination, but nice enough for a quick getaway just the same, and had some of the cleanest bathrooms I have ever seen at a campground.
As a bonus, you can walk into the little town from here. We ran out of beer and walked over to the liquor store which I will crown as the BEST LIQUOR STORE I HAVE EVER BEEN IN. It was very small, but had such an amazing variety that craft beer aficionados and vintners alike would dream of a neighborhood shop such as this. What they lacked in quantity they bar far made up in variety. Besides, how often do you think you’ll sell a $500 bottle of Dom? You probably only need one…
THE BIG HIKE
So Saturday morning we slept in and had a nice breakfast. Then we grilled some Korean short ribs before packing up and heading out to our hike. The trailhead was only about a mile from our campground and soon enough we were off.
Korean Short Rib Recipe
Marinate Korean cut short ribs for about 4 days in:
Soy sauce
Sesame oil
Saki
Honey
Grill it up a few minutes on each side and DAMN! Now that’s good.
Not being acclimated to the “altitude,” starting at about 11 am and with the sun beating down, it was a painful, slow start.
The first part of the trail was steep and sunny. We stopped to find a geo-cache and then stopped many, many times in the shade for more water. It’s hard to enjoy the scenery when you’re unable to catch your breath and sweating like a banshee.
Finally I got tired of waiting for everyone and told them I was going to “test a theory.” My theory was slow and steady and just keep going. So I took off ahead at a brisk 1 mph. And I went way ahead for quite some distance.
When I finally reached the fork with the sign, “Suicide Rock, 1.0 –>” I stopped to wait. There was a rough looking old guy with a long grey beard, jeans ragged at the cuffs held up with a rope belt and a knife tied with the same rope at his hip. It was a little unnerving to be along in the wilderness with such a cooter-looking fellow such as this, but I put on a confident smile and went to say hi.
The guy had been on the trail for over 15 days. He’d started in Campo with 1,500 other hikers and was walking the Pacific Crest Trail with the intention of getting to Canada. I wonder if he’ll ever make it.
The crew caught up a little while later and we started up again with me in the lead.
RATTLESNAKE!
So, Gabriel and I had gotten ahead again. The ground was rocky and uneven and required most of your attention where you were stepping so you don’t twist an ankle. We were getting pretty close to the top when I hear Gabe say softly, “…Rae…” and then I hear the buzz of the rattle directly to my left.
I looked over and saw a giant, black Pacific Rattlesnake coiled right next to the trail. His rattle was buzzing and his head was moving upward.
In less than a split second I was screaming at the top of my lungs and I jumped about ten feet straight up in the air and sideways away from him into the weeds. I leaped like a gazelle through the weeds wide around the berth of the snake. There was a dark shadow and I screamed again, confident snakes were everywhere!
(Turned out they were, we saw two more on that hike!)
So I’m still here. I didn’t get bit. Feeling pretty lucky he was also an old cooter. Old enough, wise enough, patient enough to give a warning before a bite. It would have been a life-flight out of there, or a long walk down. I googled some pictures of what happens to people who have gotten bit by snakes, and it is not pretty. It is not cheap either.
Today I am feeling lucky and have found another justification for LIVING LIFE THEY WAY YOU WANT TO, CAUSE YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO ENJOY IT FOR LONG.