PCT between San Jac and the 10?

[Backwoods]

Zippydude I'm getting droped off at the 243 and black mountain rd. Yes the road is closed. I got picked up at the PCT and black mt rd early'r in the year when I hiked from Idyllwild and it was open so I know it's a bit of a road walk and up pretty high. From what I have read the BM trail is pretty screwed up so I'm walkin the RD. I don't care as long as it get's me hiking N this week. With taking into account the extra miles - snow and overgroth and a late start I was wondering if you remember if there are many flat spot's to spend the night before the bottom? I dont realy want to camp down in the pass if I could camp up the mt a bit. I'm prepaird for wind. And Burrrr night. It got down to 18 one night above Anza Borago when I went through there 3 week's ago it was 15 degree's colder than 2k' higher up in mt Laguna. The desert get's cold at night. One good is thing water shouldent be a proublem up on the mt.

[zippetydude]

Yes, there are maybe a dozen places that I have passed and thought, "This would be a great camping spot!" You can be choosy, and the east face of the mountain gets less wind. Enjoy!

z

[chris in redlands]

backwoods: The black mountain trail is one that I really enjoy... if by "screwed up" you mean it's steep, well, that's true. But it's still a really nice trail. At the end of the steepest section you're rewarded with a beautiful and almost completely flat stretch of trail through sculptural stacks of boulder and twisted old trees. Totally worth the effort. Trail eventually leads to the fire lookout, but could prove difficult to follow up high if there was considerable snow and you were first to travel it.

[Backwoods]

Chris if I wasen't 190 miles into a PCT thru hike I would jump on it .Steep's cool with I like steep trail's. I'v camped up in LRV 7 times in the last 8 months up marrion mt tr with a full backpack spent over 100 nights up in the san J's learning how to hike and training for??? It turned out to be the PCT thru that I'm on now so I have that got to keep headin N additude. The proublem with BM trail is that I researched it and read that in the mid section there are blow down's - overgroth and just poor trail conditions and the biggy 1 guy had to turn back add some snow and the fact that I dont want to chance turning around since I'm not on a day hike and I have been down BM road I kinda got to go with the road. I live in Idyllwild and never hear anything about this trail so there are just to many ?????? for what my goal is.

[chris in redlands]

The trail was fantastic, and HOT!

There was just enough breeze to keep it pleasant though. We turned around at about 7 miles in.

One thing that sort of irked me about the trail was how FAR the trail builders decided to go to gain elevation. The trail could have been MUCH steeper without being very steep. It got exasperating at times to walk a half mile and look down and see the trail a half mile ago only about 200 feet below! Ha!

I'd like to read a bit of the history of this section of the PCT if it's out there somewhere. Can't believe how long and mellow this trail is!

Anyway, here's some photos from the hike yesterday. I'm a rock climber, so a lot of the photos are of the massive boulders in the first couple miles of the trail. Thanks for your help folks!

[lilbitmo]

The trail was fantastic, and HOT!

There was just enough breeze to keep it pleasant though. We turned around at about 7 miles in.

One thing that sort of irked me about the trail was how FAR the trail builders decided to go to gain elevation. The trail could have been MUCH steeper without being very steep. It got exasperating at times to walk a half mile and look down and see the trail a half mile ago only about 200 feet below! Ha!

I'd like to read a bit of the history of this section of the PCT if it's out there somewhere. Can't believe how long and mellow this trail is!

Anyway, here's some photos from the hike yesterday. I'm a rock climber, so a lot of the photos are of the massive boulders in the first couple miles of the trail. Thanks for your help folks!

Chris - just a guess but the trail in the area is a bit silly for how far to the east and west is traverses on those lower switch backs but I'm guessing that it was designed that way so that PCT Thru - hikers coming south to north could adjust to the heat of the desert in a slow long mellow fashion with full packs as they transitioned from the cool mountains down into the desert floor - just a guess. There's talk of rerouting that section away from the DWA property and the village becuase of confrontations that have happened in the past few years.

If you find some good tidbits about the history, please so share them.

Enjoy

[Backwoods]

Chris I did it from Black Mt Rd and the 243 to the 10 fwy last Thur-Fri. The conditions made it pretty epic and the flatness of the desent added to it becouse of all the snow down to 5500ft and then the high wind on thur's night with no safe cover where I was at dark. I just wanted that sucker to start going down so I could get out of the snow I had around 14 miles of 1 to 2 ft snow to hike over counting BM rd. mine were the only foot print's I'll do a post on it.

[chris in redlands]

lilbitmo - will do! I like your theories.

Chris I did it from Black Mt Rd and the 243 to the 10 fwy last Thur-Fri. The conditions made it pretty epic and the flatness of the desent added to it becouse of all the snow down to 5500ft and then the high wind on thur's night with no safe cover where I was at dark. I just wanted that sucker to start going down so I could get out of the snow I had around 14 miles of 1 to 2 ft snow to hike over counting BM rd. mine were the only foot print's I'll do a post on it.

Ha!

By the time we were at about 3,400 feet I started thinking that we might have been the first on the trail in weeks...there were little shrubby weeds growing up right out of the trail that we were getting our feet all tangled up in. No snow for us, but now that I look at our tracklog, I see that we never made it above 3,600 feet. Ha! 2,400 feet of elevation gain in 7 miles. Ridiculous!

[Backwoods]

Yep after sloging up Black Mt Rd in the snow all day I was still a way's from the PCT and looked at my map and it showed it just below me I figured since the snow was so deep it would be good to start at the trailhead so I know atleast for a second that I was on the trail I could have thru a rock hard and landed it up on the RD a 1/2 hour later so all together I could have saved about a hour if I just went down the side there was enough snow to make it dooable . I'm not suppost to question the trail and just trust it but I got to admit. It was getting late and I was pissed at myself for not doing it.

[zippetydude]

Hey Chris, if you go back up you can take a xc route instead of going on that first gigantic switchback. When you get to the water fountain, just go straight up the mountain. It's kinda steep but fairly open terrain and you'll pop out on the trail just as it goes by that big egg shaped rock and curves around into the canyon. It's maybe a mile, and it cuts out about 3 miles, but there's no trail at all, so it's some rock hopping, some scouting around...it's a fun alternative. I do it that way about half the time.

z