Day 11- leaving Idyllwild and heading up San Jacinto! So while on the trail before and in Idyllwild the hot topic was San Jacinto. A snowy mountain in the middle of the desert. Rumors were lurking everywhere. Don’t do it! Have crampons or at least microspikes! So the hikers were going a little crazy, some sent their mountaineering gear here instead of Kennedy Meadows and others headed to the store to buy spikes. I chose to just go with it. I already had spikes being sent to KM and didn’t want to spend more money. I’d just move slow if needed, or turn back if things got bad. Leg felt pretty good this day, but the elevation gain and snow made it a tough day. I postholed twice, but hiked with me trail fam, Moritz, Zeph, and Megan. So we’re all a little nervous about what was to come and as soon as we see snow and everyone gets ready a rescue helicopter flies right over us…umm what? My nerves shot right up. But there we went slow and steady, and it was hilarious…..because nothing was even bad. Fear mongering became a very familiar thing this year. When we went spikes were not needed. It was just silly. We got to camp where there was some trail magic, a guy grilling up a little bit of food but was basically out. And guess who I found at camp, Emi and Russ!!! I was so excited to see them. I hadn’t seen them since the first night! It literally made my heart smile to see them again. And I got some street cred for changing out of my shorts and into my thermals out in front of everyone without showing anything. Just slide the first leg into the pants, out the pants through the shorts then put the other leg in…shorts come off and wah lah!! It was really cold so I went into my tent pretty quickly, and so did everyone else. But we wanted to talk so I relaxed in my tent talking to my friends while they lay in theirs. – the helicopter was for a man who broke his ankle up the mountain, we didn’t see him on the way down but our campsite was the hub for the rescuers. So we saw people going out with a stretcher and about 2am heard them come out of the mountains and leave. They had rescued the man!!