Day 9-not the way it was supposed to be

I was still hiking with Brian and if I hadn't been there would have been no way I would have got as far as I did. The plan for the day was to get the 22 miles in that it would take to get to idyllwild. We began bright and early and soon found that today would be all uphill. And not just any kind of uphill. killer switchbacks that were never-ending. The second we thought we were finally at the top there ended up being another peak we would have to climb. Only to make things worse, about half way in we really needed water and decided to get it at apache spring. Which turned out to be an amazing little spring. The only trouble was it was a very steep half mile downhill climb to it. We made this our first rest stop. While we were resting we met three hikers with the trail names bonfire and ghost. The other was an older fellow who actually was pretty fast. They had started on April 30 and were moving pretty slow.

On our torturous journey through the mountains we saw tons of lizards and as couple rabbits. It was full of amazing views as well. My feet and legs are so sore from this very tough day. The plan for tomorrow is to just take a zero day in idyllwild (no walking) and let myself rest up some more for fuller ridge. Brian plans to stay in idyllwild a couple days so I may not be hiking with him anymore. We both hiked better when we had a partner but that just means it's on to the next group of people to hike with.