Day 18: Alpine environments
Miserable night yesterday: dead tired, devastated by the length and unexpected difficulty of the trail, the strong night wind did the rest and prevented me from resting as I’d have liked and should have. Therefore, today the muscular problem in my knee showed up much earlier than usual.
The environment remains typically alpine. Forests of tall conifers, many fallen and broken by wind and storms – this side of San Jacinto has been spared from fires. A familiar environment also for the altitudes reached: the highest point around 2700 meters, which for the end of April is quite high. In the last stretch today, huge boulders on which mammoth trunks had shattered made me imagine a mythological war between trees and rocks, as if we were in Middle Earth: Ents against granite rocky giants, fighting for supremacy.
Short day (about 15 kilometers) of almost rest, in preparation for the last two that await us to conclude this short but intense section, in which the Alps have found their place in southern California.
