Walking along Granite Mt. with
San Felipe Hills in the distance.
"Oooh...Scissors Crossing! Oooh...
the San Felipe Hills!" says Amy.
(Amy's rather a simple sort)
Coming into Scissors Xing. with
Granite Mt. looming behind.
Once up in the San Felipe's,
strong winds blew fog back in,
completely engulfing Vulcan Mt.
across the valley.
Making camp right on the narrow
trail.
After a traverse of Granite Mountain, we descended and made our way across the valley to Scissors Crossing. When viewed from above, the two intersecting roads in the valley do resemble a pair scissors. After refreshing ourselves at San Felipe Creek and partaking of the water left by generous trail angels, we began our trek up into the dreaded San Felipe Hills. Shadeless and without water for nearly 24 miles, they are legendary on the PCT. The cool temperatures from the previous day had continued and even at midday, we could see some fog lingering to the west. This made the immediate assent onto dry Grapevine Mountain quite pleasant.
These hills are kind of surreal, like something out of a Roadrunner cartoon. You climb into them and then undulate along a ridge with just cactus and very few other desert plants for scenery. Every canyon looks the same making you feel as though you are on a treadmill--always moving, but not getting anywhere.
At one point, in the late afternoon, we finally crossed east into a valley containing scrubby trees. Something about being alone high up in these strange mountains allows the imagination to run rampant. The strong wind made an eerie sound and if we listened closely, we were sure we could hear the strains of the theme song from "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." We were glad when we crossed back onto the western rim of the mountains, which provided excellent views, but the wind was so strong that we eventually turned in early and camped on the trail huddled in our mummy bags.