Monday, April 01, 2019 – 9.10 miles

My nose was running this morning and my throat was dry from sleeping with my mouth open. Not sure whether it’s sickness or I’m allergic to something hereabouts. If the former, I could go into Idyllwild tomorrow from Highway 74 and rest there for a few days. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

More nice scenery today. The trail passed through a poppy superbloom area, and the poppies looked so pretty that I wanted to land my helicopter in them~

Water sources in this stretch included gross pools in Nance Canyon, gross water in Coyote Canyon Guzzler, a cache, and a tank pointed to with signs saying ‘Brooklyn Ferry’. By design I was carrying enough water to bypass all of them, though I was tempted by the interestingly named Brooklyn Ferry, which also had a picnic bench nearby.

I stopped to camp early at Alkali Wash since eTrails and the paper maps don’t show any campsites between here and the highway. No doubt there will be opportunities, but this is fine.

While I was resting before making camp, a large black beetle approached across the sand. I’ve never cared for the many varieties of large black beetles and usually get up and move when I see them coming, but the other day I decided to just sit and see what a beetle did and discovered that it totally avoided making contact with my body. This one did the same, passing beneath my bent knees, and it also cutely tumbled over onto its back on one occasion. So I’m sold on the large black beetles.