by neverwashasbeen » Sun May 13, 2012 8:47 pm
On Saturday I decided to take a little outing on Mt. San Jacinto. Since I am the nervous type, I opted for some company from one of the more experienced members of the board. Having done some reading about mountaineering recently, I decided that it would be prudent to get an alpine start. With that in mind I met up with my trail companion at the lower tram station and we went up on the first available 11 am car. It turned out that riding up the tram was rather overwhelming for my partner, the rate of ascent made him dizzy and I think he may have gotten a headache. Once at the top station, we took a little break in order to regain our bearing. Then we headed down the ramp to Long Valley. We took a short tour of some of the trails and admired some of the more recent signs, especially some of the ones my partner hadn't seen before. We then took a 20 minute walk, during which we ran into a number of Skyline hikers. It seems that it was a warm day for those adventerous souls. By this time we thought it was getting close to lunch time. Being out of doors really stimulates my appetite. We looked around and found a nice ledge to sit on and enjoy lunch. After lunch we goofed off on the rocks a little bit and then headed back to the tram. By maintianing a hard charging pace we were able to catch the tram and made it down to the lower tram station at roughly 5 pm. Needless to say, after such an intense day, I slept great. Thanks for all the encouraging words and support we recieved from everyone we met. I hope my buddy for the trip will give some more details on what was a truly magical day. I'm inspired to try and get out and do something even more ambitious next time.
Happy Trails!