Water sources on Deer Springs trail

General Palm Springs area.

Water sources on Deer Springs trail

Postby bcrowell » Tue May 26, 2020 1:50 pm

For the last three Fridays I've been trying out new trail running routes in the San J area. My usual style when I do this sort of thing is to bring a 500 ml water bottle and refill as needed. This means that I generally need to do routes where there is water available along the way. (I don't filter, but that's a different discussion.)

What I initially did was to start from the South Ridge trailhead, go up Tahquitz Peak and over Wellman Divide to the junction below the summit of San J, and return by the same route. This worked pretty well once the snow melted off enough, and it was also good this time of year because I had a water source at Wellman Cienaga. But if I was going to keep doing it this way, it would really be a seasonal thing, because too early in the year there would be too much snow, and too late in the year and the cienagas wouldn't be running.

The most recent time I went up there, I tried a loop where I went up Deer Springs and then came back via the east side of the range. Previously I had disliked Deer Springs because the lower part isn't very scenic and doesn't have much shade, but it was actually really nice for running a loop, when I was only on it in the cool early morning.

There are lots of water sources running right now between the Deer Springs trailhead and the summit, like maybe five or six spots where I had to hop a creek on my way up. Would any of these water sources continue through the whole summer, in a typical snow year?
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Re: Water sources on Deer Springs trail

Postby jfr » Thu May 28, 2020 5:56 pm

I believe that this map was created by Hikin' Jim: https://caltopo.com/m/6V2F
It has almost every water source in the San Jacinto area listed.

The only spring that was still flowing even in the driest months of 2015 was "Upper Bed Springs" which is about a half mile below Little Round Valley. The other springs tend to fade out as Summer progresses, but not that one.
My (collected) trip reports: http://hikingtales.com/
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Re: Water sources on Deer Springs trail

Postby bcrowell » Tue Jun 02, 2020 5:25 pm

Thanks, jfr, that's very helpful! I was up there today and ran into Jon King, who also said he thought that at least some of the water sources along the Deer Springs trail were not ephemeral.
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