Day 12-the endless switchbacks

The day started out with me getting a little later start than usual: around 7. It was very windy all night and I didn't sleep good so I slept a little longer to make up for it. Then when i finally got on the trail the descent began. In 16 miles of switchbacks I dropped from over 8000 feet to around 1000. Also, the trail in those 16 miles cover under 5 miles of distance as the crow flies. Talk about endless. It was still a great day though, as far as mileage. I ended up getting about 29 miles in to make up for my smaller day yesterday. I am camped at whitewater creek, about trail mile 222. If I push hard through lots of uphill tomorrow I can be in big bear city in a couple days to resupply. The wildlife today consisted of lot of ground squirrels, geckos, rabbits, and in the early morning I thought I saw a fox. It was by far the biggest animal I have seen and it ran up the hill to fast for me to get a good look or a picture.

After descending down the San Jacinto mountains I crossed the dessert and went under the freeway I-10. It was so hot and windy I might have died had a trail angel not left beer soda and goodies under the overpass. It was a great spot for a rest. After I passed under there were a few more miles of dessert, including through a windfarm (that explains why it was so windy) then it was up into the San gorfino hills and into the whitewater reserve. Tomorrow will be lots of climbing and we will see how I do after the big mileage of today. It is already very apparent that the zero day (rest day) helped me a lot.