"Long day on (and off) a section of the PCT - hiked from Route 74 (close to Santa Rosa Summit) to downtown Idyllwild. Around 35 miles total with the various detours to bag these peaks. I was too impatient and attacked Lion Peak from the South rather than waiting to get to the saddle which resulted in heinous bushwhacking and class 4 climbing. Learned my lesson on Pine Mountain and stuck to the cairns religiously which helped me avoid the horror scenarios described by others on this site. Palm View Peak is really close to the trail, but nevertheless required fighting through a good amount of thorns. My chosen technique was to try to use fallen logs as much as possible to stay above the fray. Spitler and Apache were conquered after nightfall (I started the day late), and with many miles to go I decided to stick to the trail from there on. Got to my hotel room after 2am..." — danishclimber • Aug 14, 2024

"In recent nostalgic fashion, I revisited two peaks from over 20 years ago. In this case, I visited both on a single hike, which is a new way for me to visit them. I headed up Apache first, then took the PCT to the Spitler Peak use trail. Found a register on Apache, but nothing atop Spitler." — MikeTeeples • Jun 1, 2024

"Memorial Day 2024 Desert Divide trip. Fobes Ranch road is super bumpy and not in good shape. Fobes trail up to PCT was easy. Steady climb up from Fobes Saddle to Spitler. Great views of San Jacinto and south to Rabbit Peak. I passed about a dozen PCTers returning to the saddle. From the saddle up to Palm view the vegetation is encroaching the trail in a number of places. I clipped the worst areas on the lower switchbacks. Palm View is a flat, wooded, overgrown summit; I don't know why the Sierra Club chooses to include peaks like this. From Palm View, the descent to Cone is well-ducked but requires paying close attention to not get off route. I clipped another section through here. I climbed the wrong spire at the summit before realizing that the south block was higher. Fun class 2/3 summit blocks. I was fairly tired at this point and wanted to avoid the 700' XC climb back to the PCT, so I took a gamble on descending the draw on the west face of Cone peak. This went easily for the upper half. There's a spring (not on map) about half way down and water in the creek which meant the vegetation got much thicker. I ended up staying in the creekbed directly most of the way. Th..." — edg • May 27, 2024