At ten O’clock Friday night I find myself with little or no sleep and I texted Ellen to say I’m not feeling 100% so I’m going to bail on the Full Moon hike up Skyline – after eating a double size BLT and an hour of watching brainless TV my adrenaline kicks in and by 11:15 PM I find myself packing the car with the rest of my gear and hitting the 91 East for Palm Springs. I almost missed one of the best hikes I had in a long time, everyone was having a great time and the group “gelled from the get go” talk was rampant and so were the stories and the laughter, I was glad that I had changed my mind – it was well worth the chance to meet so many of the great folks that frequent this board and those that love the “Skyline Trial”, thanks for having me along everyone.
I arrived at the Museum parking lot to find:
Florian – Great to finally meet you and hike with you, thanks for what you do with the emergency water stash, that’s so unselfish, nice work.
Sally – Same, nice to spend the last hour at the top grinding it out before the Tram Station – nice also to meet your husband in the parking lot.
Don (A.K.A. Lcpl (lance coporal)) – Way to keep the pace with everyone else, nice work, good to meet you and spend some time on the beginning with you.
Patrick (A.K.A. Skunkboy) – nice meeting you, will do another hike when you are feeling better – thanks for waiting for us at the Valley Station – we were having way to much fun and forgot to get done on an earlier tram.
Ernie (A.K.A. Eman from Beverly Hills) – nice to hike with you, though we meet on another tram ride that was our first chance to hike together.
Tracie (A.K.A. Blooty) – nice to meet you, love your enthusiasm for the outdoors and life in general, hope to see you and Eman on the trail again soon.
Mark (English Mark) – thanks for setting a double pace, sorry you’re having problems with the knee again, see you on the next one.
Brad – long time no see, glad you made it.
Doug – way to get out fast and lead the way, nice to see a light on the trail up ahead.
John – nice meeting you, hope to catch you on another hike.
Rick (from another group) – glad you are back out hiking so soon after surgery, you were a real trooper the whole way up, thanks for sharing the stories and trail with us. It was nice to meet your two friends just before the tram but I cannot remember their names.
Ellen, as always it’s fun to hang with you – when I can keep up on the dirt – you continue to inspire me.
Kathrine – you are getting faster and faster each time you go out, nice work.
These three caught us at Flat Rock - Steve, Fern, Zip – you guys amaze me at how fast you move and how easy you make it look – and thanks for all the laughs – Steve my middle finger is still pointing in your direction (you know what I mean)
After the usual introductions and last minute preparations we headed out by 1:20 AM, didn’t care to much to watch the time as the first time I did this trail back in Nov of last year is the day that everyone was doing the “Doubles and Triples” that was a painful experience in trying to keep up with the regulars, this time it was about just doing a nice steady climb, which I enjoyed immensely.
The temp’s were just right for shorts and a tee shirt, little soft breeze and the moon was just past full. Halfway between the picnic tables and the top of the deep canyon I ran into a gentleman by the name of Rick – he was just getting back out after a procedure he had and had gotten a three hour jump on his friends that started at 4 AM and made to Long Valley 20 minutes after all of us topped out.
Mark was having a hell of a time with his right knee so he turned back before the “Never Ending Ridge”, everyone else stopped at “Flat Rock” for a rest and some food and just as we were getting ready to get moving again the “Three Amigos” came running up the trial – you guessed it Fern, Steve and Zip were “high tailing it” trying to catch us, they started at 3:30 (I think) and made great time. Ten minutes later we were heading up that “steep sections” below Grubs Notch and the breeze was picking up which really helped me enjoy the hike more this time – the shade in the pine trees was “heaven sent”.
Topping out in Long Valley we all gathered around the rocks to shoot the “$hit” and take pictures, then instead of taking the roundabout way back to the tram concrete ramp, we all chose to go over the fence at the top of the rocks just to the north of where we topped out at Grubs Notch, posing and fooling around like “kids in a candy store”. From there we headed into the tram bar where Brad, John and Doug were getting a head start on everyone with a “couple of drafts”. We spent another hour in there talking about a little of everything before figuring out how to get everyone back to their cars at the “Museum” – thanks Florian for giving Steve and Fern a ride to their cars and thanks Steve and Fern for coming back to get the rest of us “sweaty, smelly hikers”
This was an epic hike in that everyone had fun (except maybe Mark’s knee) and thanks to everyone that suggested we do it and lastly thanks for having me along– you guys “ROCK” – this is a great group and those that wanted to join us but were unable, you should find a way to go next time, you missed a classic get-to-gether.
Pictures here
First picture belongs to "Blooty" I added it here just to make it easy to find.
If anyone wants a picture, please send me “Private Message” and I will email them to you at your email address – send me your email.
Lilbitmo/Patrick
He was about 10 minutes ahead of me on the road.
Saint Florian of the water cache provided all of us with different colored light sticks so we could keep track of each other in the moonlight.
Took a brief fuel stop at Shade rock and made our way up the switchbacks to the ridge. I noticed that in addition to providing protection from the sun, Shade Rock blocked the moonlight. Once on the ridge, we were treated to a cooling breeze --aahh!!!
