`PCT 2026 DAY 15 – CA Section B – Oh, what a beautiful morning!

Tuesday, April 14th, 2026

I awoke to frozen ice outside of my hotel room. Still very glad I took a couple Zero Days to avoid the storms in the mountains. 😀

Fortunately, the storms had moved out and it was a beautiful clear day. Perfect for a long hike.

Back on the trail, the first thing you saw was a reminder that the mountains can be deadly.

Goal for the next 3 to 4 days is to get over Mount San Jicinto. Until Sunday there was no snow on the mountain, but there is now. Fortunately, it’s at least two days before I have to encounter that ice and snow.

Nothing really tough about this hike UP (down was another thing). It’ll just took some time.

It wasn’t long before I saw San Jacinto Peak and confirmed that the mountains received a good coating of snow and hail while I was in Idyllwild.

A first look at Palm Springs from Above:

It was hard to tell for sure, but by afternoon most of the visible snow had melted of San Jacinto Peak.

The only complicated part was at the end of the day. I was looking for a good campsite based on an outdated map and did some bush whacking trying to find a good view of the sunset and/or the sunrise.

I did find one (see tomorrow’s pictures for the sunrise), but it was more effort than I think I should’ve used. But it had a good Sunset nighttime view of Palm Springs from above, and the Sunrise in the morning should be nice too.