I'm brand new to mtsanjacinto.info so thought i'd post a new topic to sort of introduce myself. Hope that's okay with y'all. I grew up in Palm Springs and first hiked the Skyline in probably 1970 or maybe 71 when i was in high school. I wasn't very social in school and found hiking was something i really loved and could do alone. I pretty much learned to hike and camp along the Skyline trail during my youth. In those days it was rare to ever see anyone else on the trail. The route was hard to follow as well. After the Dry Falls fire in 1980 (?) things opened up a bit.
What's prompting me to write this is i hiked the trail from PS to Long Valley today for the first time in over 20 years getting to the top in 6.5 hours. Along the trail i ran into tinaballina and her friends Steve and Dana. We leap-frogged a few times and got to chatting. I was running a bit low on water and Tina offered me a bottle of Gatorade she had cached. How great is that! (Tina, thanks again!) Tina mentioned this site so here i am! I'm not really an endurance runner/hiker like i know may of you are but i enjoy desert hiking all i can. I hike the foothills around Palm Springs a lot and during summer i'm up the tram at least once a week.
Looking forward to browsing the forums here and seeing what everyone is up to! The links below probably share more of my life than is wise.
-Florian Boyd
http://www.stargazing.com/
http://twitter.com/FlorianBoyd
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fboyd
