Day 11 – Little Bear Hostel to PVC

Sunday, May 4, 2026. Cold, cloudy, damp, very windy. 

Up at  5:30. On trail at 6:20.

We have 8.8 miles to get to Paradise Valley Cafe (PVC) today. This is a famous landmark 0.8 miles off the PCT. It is a restaurant in the middle of nowhere at the intersection of the only 2 major roads in a large area. Super hiker-friendly and the best place to get a ride into Idyllwild. They also accept mail packages for hikers. 

Rough uphill climb with high wind. Sweating and cold is not a good mix. We passed the 150-mile marker at 8:15.

We reached PVC at 9:15 after an 0.8-mile road walk down Highway 74. There were about 15 hikers here. More arrived over the next 2 hours. 

We had an awesome breakfast at PVC. My breakfast burrito was the size of a football!

I contacted Grumpy, a famous local trail angel, about a ride to town. It turned out he was just arriving at PVC for lunch! Perfect timing. Grumpy drove 4 of us to Idyllwild at 11:30. 

Brad and I checked in at the Idyllwild Inn and our room was almost ready now instead of at 4:00. Our good luck continued. We dropped our packs and wandered around town for a bit until the hotel texted that the room was ready.

Our hotel is in the heart of downtown within 2 blocks of everything. Some folks are staying almost 2 miles out of town. Glad I booked this place 3 weeks ago.

Side note…there is very bad weather rolling in tonight. Rain, wind, and lows near freezing on the mountain with possible snow up there. Everyone is changing their plans and getting off trail. Even those who hiked on from PVC this morning changed their minds and sought shelter in town. We are at almost 6000 feet and will be climbing to 10000 feet over the next 2-3 days. Huge weather changes at those altitudes. 

I unpacked, showered, got laundry going, and found good beer and pizza right across the street.

Just chilled the rest of the day.  Planning on doing town chores tomorrow. My package from home arrived with my lightweight camp shoes. I will send my heavy camp shoes home tomorrow to save weight. 

Took a nice nap, talked to my mom and to Pit Crew. Mom was worried since I had not posted blogs in 3 days. I explained about the lack of cell service. 

I headed to dinner with Brad around 7:30. We connected with a large crowd including Hell Yeah, Brian, Margarita, TJ, Banquet, Chinchilla, and 5 others.

Cool side note…Banquet is a young aerospace engineer who lives and works above Baltimore. She went to school at WVU where she got introduced to hiking. We had a good talk about hiking spots in WV and MD.

After dinner, we walked to a pub that I found earlier today and listened to an awesome British duo on guitar and upright bass.

Paul Hooper, you would love these guys! Amazing talent.

I called it an early night and went back to the cabin about 9:00 and watched some videos before falling asleep. 

Technical Notes:

• Fig bar 200
• Breakfast Burrito 650
• Personal pizza 800
• Not counting anymore town calories 
• Propel x 0
• Water liters: .5
• Miles: 8.34
• Time: 3:13
• Up: 1539
• Down: 932
• Calories consumed: lots 
• Calories burned: 1359
• iPhone battery used: 10%