Visit to Mexico

Our most recent hike was a few days ago on the PCT. We started around Penny Pines (very close to where we left off from the weekend before) and hiked up to the Sunrise Trailhead, which was just shy of 14 miles including a hike up to the top of Garnet Peak. The trail skimmed cliffs overlooking the Anza Borrego Desert and offered some phenomenal views. The hike itself was very nice, lots of rolling ups and downs. The only thing that made this hike occasionally difficult was the wind. Oh my goodness, was it windy. The weather channel told us to expect winds around 25-30 miles an hour, and I'm sure that it was gusting much faster than that while we were hiking on cliffsides. Most of the time the wind was actually behind us helping to push us along, so it wasn't too bad.

The same afternoon, we drove down to the Southern Terminus and hiked a quick 1.5 miles to Campo's post office. I really enjoyed seeing the Southern Terminus and the border with my own eyes, especially since I have only seen it in pictures. We took pictures at the Southern Terminus and explored the border as much as possible, after assuring a Border Patrol officer that we were no threat. We even stuck our feet under the border wall so we could say we had "visited Mexico."

From the top of Garnet Peak

The border

Look! See - Mexico!

PCT Southern Terminus

A little trail humor...

Also, I had mentioned a few posts back about reserving Half Dome permits. The first date to reserve permits for the month of August was May 1st at 7am. The permits sold out within minutes! I didn't get one! I panicked a bit, and made a call to the Yosemite Wilderness office. Apparently, if you already have a JMT permit this also covers a permit to summit Half Dome. I asked the man on the other end of the line to repeat this a few times, and he assured me that our JMT permit would in fact, grant us access to the top of Half Dome. He said Yosemite allows this for people or groups with backpacking permits starting near Half Dome because they recognize how difficult it can be sometimes to get a Half Dome permit. Thanks Yosemite!!