Mt. San Gorgonio

We started off pretty enthusiastic and positive after conquering White mountain at 14,200 feet like we were bosses two weeks ago. All we had to do was conquer length now (approx twice the distance).

We started at 4 am.  We were awakened by a 2.3 EQ in Yucaipa at 2:49, just 10 minutes before the alarm went off.  Going up in the dark was fun. A little eerie with only about 8’ diameter visibility. We would find out later that this may have been a psychological advantage. We couldn’t see what we were about to face. Just had to face it moment by moment.

We made about 4 miles before the sun came up after 2 hours. We were still fresh and going strong. Eating about once a hour kept our energy up. We were both carrying 4 liters of water so that approx 9 lbs.  We didn’t know there was water at High Creek.

I’d say we kept a reasonable pace up until we got near the summit and again faced with a very steep path. Only this time about 6 and 7 miles in. Up until now our hikes have been the 10 miles total range so this was new territory. We kept positive even with the false peak illusion that should be used to by now. But it was starting to get difficult.

We reached the summit to have our lunch and had to hurry a bit since weather was coming in. It got cold and windy and then it got wet. It wasn’t too bad but the temps were low enough that our fingers were numb even with gloves. We’ll need something warmer for Whitney.

The we headed down and our legs were pretty drained. We had to a couple of wardrobe adjustments for weather.

We were expecting gravity to be our friend and for the descent to be “easy”. It was anything but. It felt like it took forever. We kept checking the map and getting frustrated that we weren’t moving. I think we both just wanted off that mountain after about 10 hours.

We kept going as hard as we could but our spirits continued to degrade and the next several hours grinded on. It was not helpful to get into this mental state. It made it not fun and we suffered more than we needed to. We finally got to the car after 13+ hours and we were vowing to never hike that again or maybe nothing ever again, ah but amnesia will set in and we’ll do San Jacinto in a couple of weeks.

We went to dinner and that helped our mood.  At dinner we started looking at some metrics and realized that the downhill wasn’t as disastrous as we felt. We went up in 7:19 and down in 5:23. So our pace was better and that made us feel better, but still slower than most.