[pct-l] day hiking in lower section B

[David Hough reading PCT-L]

There is a nice water cache right on the trail at Chihuahua Valley Road,
set up by the Boy Scouts, but perhaps kept filled by Mike down the road.
It makes a quick refill possible without a detour to Mike's place.

There was a freshly painted Water sign near Lost Valley Spring.   I didn't
check it out but it was full 20 years ago!   There was an ancient water sign
further north on the trail pointing uphill but I didn't bother checking it out.

I got as far north as halfmile-2019 milepost 131.5 at the mouth of a side
canyon that has a lot of cleared campsites for dry camping.   Not mentioned
on my 2019 maps.

Not many flowers compared to lower at Warner Springs, but the brush was
thriving.     Chaparal starts growing back five minutes after the trail 
crew goes home.    There are a couple of places where the trail tread is
starting to slip side away on the north side of Combs Peak.    Fortunately (?)
if you trip and fall, the brush will catch you in most places.
On the other hand, the relatively recently (post 1968)
constructed trail in this area
conforms beautifully to the 15% grade Forest Service standard, making
ascents and descents very tolerable, even if it seems to be the long way
around at times.

The road situation around Anza is deteriorating.     The new Cahuilla casino
attracts a lot of traffic and road work.    However the PCT access roads
seem to have deteriorated since 20 years ago.    Tule Canyon Truck Trail
was definitely not passible for ordinary cars and I was discouraged to 
try with an SUV though it might have worked.    Coyote Canyon Road didn't
look encouraging either though not as bad as far as I went.    These matter
for car-shuttling day hikers, and probably for trail maintainers.    Maybe
there are other possible access routes these days.

Chihuahua Valley Road remains passable with care by ordinary passenger cars,
at least as far as the PCT.

20 years ago Kamp Anza maintained a water cache somewhere above Anza.   I
didn't get far enough to know about the current status of that cache, but
Kamp Anza seems to be gone.

Anza itself would be a poor choice for a resupply town - spread out over quite
a long distance, and a good long walk from those access roads.     Stick
to Paradise Cafe, and Idyllwild.

I heard - amazing how trail news travels upstream and downstream - that the
Montezuma Market had become the new hiker go-to place near Barrel Springs,
but burned down a couple of days ago.

David Hough