Beautiful vistas and hiking today! We enjoyed oaks at Flathead Flat then contoured around to get great views of Anza-Borrego Desert Park far below us.

Our water from the Picnic Overlook lasted us to Pioneer Mail where we filtered tanked CDF fire fighting water. After crossing Anza-Borrego Boundary we had narrow trail that seemed to be on a vertical face. It is impossible to overstate how rugged these mountains are.

Ken's watch read 95* at lunch in the sun. Eating in the heat is just chewing and swallowing calories because we have to. We both dried feet and shoes while eating and applied anti-fungal. This is our magic potion to avoid blisters.

We picked up extra water at Sunrise Highway because we were drinking more than we expected. Again, Ken hiked extra distance to get the water. We have our bandanas hanging from our hats to shade our necks, wear sun screen and sun block Chapstick and are still grateful for every dot or stripe of shade on the trail from chaparral.

The day's biggest surprise came in the shadows of our last half mile. A rattler started buzzing at Ken. We couldn't see him in the tall grass above the trail. The other side of the trail was a downward brushy slope so I held my hat and a stick between my legs and the snake, shuffled by, then yelled, "Go!" to get farther faster.

Those lazy coyotes didn't get up to yip and howl until we were on the trail. Our first tick was unwelcome wildlife. I picked up a super-sized beetle at our morning break. The only other critters were an occasional lizard, a horned toad, and a few cottontail rabbits.

We found Roni from Israel and VA Adam under the bridge at dry San Filipe Creek. They were going to start hiking at 5pm using the full moon. We heard them at 2am kicking bottles at a water cache to find water.

We climbed the San Filipe alluvial hills starting at noon. The trail contours 800' above the valley floor around each alluvial fan, sub fan, mini fan and fanlet. In between all those fans were gullies, gulches, ravines and washes that we crossed in order to circumnavigate to the next. The trail was easy but the heat was brutal so the afternoon seemed like a slow slog.

The only civilization that I could see was on the highway below us and the dirt bikes across the valley. The rest of the view was sparse cacti and an occasional juniper. Many of the cacti were trying to bloom. Probably the rarest sight was the blooming ocotillo. We realized later that we didn't hear birds.

The evening was so warm that we dropped our ground cloth on the coarse red sand and crashed without the tent.

Another high heat day in the Southern California desert. We woke at 5:30 and left at 6 am. Most of the flora and fauna today were repeats from the last 2 days. The exception was a single deer footprint in the dusty trail. How does he survive in this hostile environment?

We reached Barrel Springs before noon. It is a shaded oasis with plenty of trees. We got to Warner Springs before the PO closed. We got our food box and mailed photo chips to Linda (look for pictures here in a few days).

Next step was to buy snacks to last us until the restaurant re-opened at 5:30. Cokes and chips worked! We bought lunch stuff for the next leg of our trip at the small mini-mart. Showers and food were welcome and we are now doing laundry and will sleep in a real bed tonight.

Next phone: Idyllwild in 3 days (69 miles)