Mount San Jacinto 3302 m - my easiest three thousand-er yet

2017-12-30

It looked for a while that the hiking season was over for me with the trip to Forgetmenot Ridge in the end of September. However, due to a kind invitation from our friends, with Lady Wife, we went to California toward the end of December. It was -33C in Edmonton when we left, and +27C in Palm Springs where we landed on 29 December. We used this warm weather to squeeze another hike in 2017.


The choice was obvious - Mount San Jacinto, 3302 m, a prominent peak near Palm Springs. Its appeal was compounded by the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which took us to the height of 2596 m. I managed to reserve relatively early ride at 8:30.

From the upper station there was still around 10 km and over 700 m of altitude gain to the peak. We obtained permit (free) from the warden's station, where we also got the local map, and off we went.

The trail is well marked and popular. The ascend is mostly quite gradual and not strenuous.

We hit a perfect day with a lot of sunshine and still, because of winter, gentle temperatures. Dusia was leading all the way.

At Wellman's Divide we finally got out of the woods. The terrain opened up.

This is where Lady Wife called it quits in favor of sun bathing. However, this didn't make me hike alone. At Wellman's Divide I hooked up with two local hikers - Surin and Micha.

They were quite fast (hiking every weekend all year around!) so at times I had difficulty keeping up with them (especially above the altitude of 3000 m).

With Micha, we quickly concluded that we were "karmic brothers," perhaps on account of our similar Slavic temperaments. Micha, of Serbian origin, sang some Serbian mountain songs while I reciprocated with "Krywaniu, Krywaniu!"

Hiking through a progressively more open slopes ...

... not deprived of certain artistic features ...

... we eventually reached the boulders of the summit.

In spite of my worries that it'll be cold on the top, there must have been at least +15C.

I could look in all directions for many miles - someone claimed that on a good day you can even see Pacific Ocean - albeit there was a bit of haze so I didn't see that far.

On the top Micha sang a Slovenian song for Melania Trump - not seeing much on my wife's phone, my recording didn't really give a proper due to the mastery of his performance! The only thing I recognized was that "Pticzek świergolił" (the bird was singing), I assume, because of the beauty of the First Lady!

Shortly thereafter I reconnected with my wife at Wellman's Divide. We ate all the remaining sandwiches, oranges and treats prepared for us by our wonderful friend and host - Gene.

Then, in a setting sun, arguing periodically about the dominance of linga or yoni, shortly before the darkness, we reached the upper station of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. All together we did almost 20 km of hiking that day. I give the GPS recording of our descent (making some mistakes operating GPS on the ascent).

Overall, a very pleasant experience and my easiest 3000-er so far!

(PR)