A Snow Storm

The young men spent last night at a hotel (with casino) in Cabazon, CA. Jack was in the room talking to me and nursing his sore feet while Brad and Erik were in the casino searching for the opposite sex…..to talk to. I decided to change their status from boys to men after hearing of their harrowing experience climbing through Marion Mtn (elev 10,362) or San Jacinto Peak (elev. 10,804). I didn’t get the name of the peak or mountain, but I did hear the excitement in Jack’s voice as he told me of their experience. They left Idyllwild (elev. 5,303) on Sunday heading toward their next resupply site….Big Bear City, 114 miles away. That morning it started to snow. It kept snowing and soon became a blizzard with 8-12 inches on the ground and poor visibility. Ice and snow started to form on their bearded faces. It was about 2 p.m. and they had lost the trail markers that had become hidden by the falling snow. They had only five hours of daylight left and made the decision to head back. Another hiker, named Gary, was hiking with them. As they headed down the mountain they encountered six foot snow drifts and in some places ice under the fresh snow that caused each of them to slip and slide…some 5 to 30 feet at a time with only their hiking stick or a tree breaking their fall. Jack was wearing cloth gloves that easily soaked up the wet snow. He had to trade off wearing socks to keep his hands warm. As they walked out of the clouds they could see the desert below (near Palm Springs), but the path to the desert was now a rocky cliff. They scaled the rocks climbing down toward the desert knowing that they didn’t want to spend the night in the snow. They finally found a switch back trail and kept hiking until 9 p.m. with their headlights shining the way. Erik’s sleeping bag had become soaked by a leaking camel pack. He slept in Jack’s tent as he had a tarp tent and relied on his sleeping bag to keep himself warm. Now he was relying on clothing and anything he could find to cover himself. They were tired and cold but felt very fortunate. A boy scout troop had also started up the mountain earlier that day. They also retreated from the mountain when the blizzard hit, but one of the adults was not that fortunate. He had fallen on the icy snow and shattered his ankle. They heard they were going to try to get someone to help evacuate the injured hiker, but they all had the feeling that the hiker and the person who stayed with him would be spending the night in a freezing blizzard.

The next day the young men made their way toward Cabazon. Brad had ordered a USB computer cord from Amazon.com for his video camera while in Warner Springs and he had it shipped to the Cabazon Post Office. Their journey to Cabazon was one of hitchhiking and highway walking. They met a different breed of people from the townsfolk they had encountered in the mountain villages and resort vacation spots along the previous Pacific Crest Trail. They were now near the big cities. Their first ride was in the back of a canopy truck after the woman driver left her barefoot 14 year old daughter on the street to continue looking for money to give to the child’s dealer. All this known became known by overhearing the conversation between the woman and her daughter. At the end of the hitched hike, the woman driver was ecstatic to receive the gas money the young men gave to her and she happily let it be known it would be used to buy beer.

Their next ride was from a working group of Native Americans. The young men had continued their journey to Cabazon by hiking and hitchhiking on Highway 10, but abandoned the highway to move to a safer and less traveled side road. Along the side road was an Indian Reservation….clearly marked with no trespassing signs. A driver stopped and said he had room for one passenger. Brad was to go with the driver. The plan was to get to the post office before it closed and to eventually meet Jack and Erik at the Burger King in Cabazon. As they were talking to Brad’s ride, a flat bed truck operated by Native Americans pulled up from the other side of the fence to check on the activity. It was a group of guys fixing fences and providing general maintenance on the reservation. Erik, being the friendly sort that he is, started a conversation that eventually led him to ask the guys in the flat bed truck for a ride toward town 4 miles away….especially since they might be going that way. Brad took off in his ride with Erik and Jack getting a ride with the guys in the flatbed. Soon Jack and Erik were being driven to the front door of the Burger King where they later met Brad.