Picnic tables

[Carl F]

In response to the "Yesterdays skyline" post:

I so totally agree. I think the first mile to the Picnic tables is so freaking confusing! If only there was an official trail to follow. Luckily, I downloaded a .gpx from one of the residential angels and it showed me off course at least 4 or 5 times on my pre-exploratory hike. Truly I thought if the whole trail is like this, no way will I make it. Luckily, the trail became much easier after the picnic tables, but still there were opportunities to get lost.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, this trail is not maintained like Marion Mtn or Vivian Creek etc.... That level of support would be necessary to get this trail in shape to eliminate the shortcuts, which unfortunately do not always look like shortcuts. Is that what people want? Putting a quota on how many people hike on a given day. When I have been up there I see 4 people max, but I hear thru the grapevine that over 70 are there on Saturday.

Should the Saturday trail burden be quota be limited? I only say this because of the dismay some have for the erosion happening here. I am an innocent bystander having only recently been brave enough to try this trail, realizing it is a treasure. How to preserve it is the question. Just a thought.

PS I will be there Monday, hope the weather does not disagree too much, but if so, BRING IT ON!!!!!!!!

[zippetydude]

I see what you mean carl. How did this end up a new thread? Anyway, the first bit up to the picnic tables is the most traveled, and thus has the most routes. An interesting side note: Palm Springs gets about 5 inches of rain a year, so after over 100 years of people taking random routes up to the nice vantage point where the picnic tables are, there's essentially zero rutting and drainage cutting into the mountain. Not because of human prevention; it's just because there's very little rain to exact the erosion. So the north face of the slope appears from below to be totally intact. From the trail itself it's a dizzying maze. If you try taking the path to the right every time, it keeps from adding to the confusion and seems to give a fairly direct route. I don't have any idea if that's a "shortcut" or not. It's the only way I can find my way up in the pre-dawn darkness.

z

[bluerail]

We definitely dont have the amount of rain that the Mountaineers club in the Pacific Northwest deal with, and though there book is wide in scope and without doubt a true bible and my favorite book, they deal little with desert travel.

Im sure alot of of those cuts before the tables are created by people that never go past the tables. They shouldnt even be an issue on this board.

There are four major shortcuts on that hill that turn a 10 mile hike into less than a 8 mile hike....two of them follow very heavily used deer trails, and the other two are on rock more than dirt. And lord knows the distance wasn't cut because people don't like being on the hill....most of these folks are on it once or twice weekly every week of the year.

I'm completely guilty of using them.

But I'm not going to get self-righteous about what ALL of us are doing to the planet.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the mountain will be ok.