Days 17 and 18 involved a total of 5 miles of hiking as we took a planned nero and zero in Idyllwild. We woke up on the morning of day 17 with our tents soaked and quilts wet as we basically slept in a cloud the night before. We hiked a motivated 5 miles to Paradise Valle Cafe and ate the first meal in 6 days that didn’t include boiling our own water. It was marvelous! We ran into General, Pick, Sticky, and Switcheroo who were all stopping to eat before heading into Idyllwild.
We got a ride into town with Snap Happy and her two dogs in a very full car between us and the dogs, but it gave the kids some dog time they’ve been missing. We stayed at Idywild Inn and took care of all of the typical town business over the next day and a half.
We were still undecided about whether to continue the trail through Mt. San Jacinto or to jump forward and come back to it later. It’s one of the big early season obstacles as the snow doesn’t melt out until later in the season and there are some steep somewhat technical areas of snow travel. After talking to hikers who had been through after the recent storm, we decided to skip the section rather than take the kids through it. We plan on trying to come back to it later in the year. Once the decision was made we organized another ride with Snap Happy for the next day to drop us off near mile 210 where the trail passes under I-10.
Emge Adventures 
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