Sucked into Julien, and some photos.

Okay so I have decided to spend an extra couple of days in Julien, mainly due to a couple of bad weather fronts that are passing through here today and Friday, to be honest the sort of weather is not that bad, I would consider it a reasonable day for hiking at home (for a day hike anyway) but it is the sort of weather that would likely leave you soaked through before the end of the day and when your only option is to pitch your tent then being overly damp is not nice.  Also you need to factor in the different equipment that I'm using here compared to at home, for example if the sleeping bag I'm using gets too damp it will lose a lot of its insulation so not leaving me in all that good a position.
A lot of through hikers may choose to hunker down in their tents on a rain day so as not to get their equipment too damp, so I decided instead of hunkering down in a tent why not hunker down in a nice comfortable hotel room within walking distance of some nice restaurants (how I love not being on a tight budget)
The other factor is along with the rain is some strong winds predicted, I can hear you saying so what.

Well here is an example of the trail in the last few days, that is the trail cutting across the middle of the photo, in was only a couple of feet wide in places with maybe a 200+ meter drop down a 75 degree+ slope (i.e. no stopping till you get to the bottom), now imagine walking along this in high winds and with mud underfoot!!

The plans for the coming weeks are roughly as follows.
Leave Julien Saturday (maybe midday depending on weather) and head north with the next planned full break being in Idyllwild in approximately 100 miles, I hope to cover this in 8-10 days, (possible partial resupply in Warner Springs and maybe a zero day somewhere on the trail) then plans call for a day or so break in Idyllwild before heading back to the kickoff event at Lake Morena, currently I'm considering getting down to a larger town and maybe renting a car for the few days and helping out other hikers, but we will see.

I have uploaded a few other photos as well, probably haven't been taking as many as I should!
https://picasaweb.google.com/104859470393475914260/MarksWalkAbout?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Oh one last clarification despite what Alan has been saying we were not actually picked up by the helicopter on the first night!

Mark