Sara and I have hike Mt San Jacinto several times but never in the snow so we headed out today to give it a go. We started by driving to the Palm Springs Arial Tram station about an hour and a half from home. We booked our tickets online for parking and the tram so it was super easy when we arrived at 8:30 for a 9am tram. At the bottom of the tram we could already see the snow in the mountains. Time to get up there…
The tram ride goes very fast but the ride up was beautiful. Look at this view of the rocks and snow from the first tram tower.
The snow and rocky peaks continued as we ascended to the top of the tram line at 8000 feet.
We left the tram station, went down the ramp to the Long valley and stopped to put on our micro-spikes. If you havent seen these before they attached to your shoes and have stainless steel spikes and chains that help with traction in the snow.
After a short stop to check in at the Ranger Station we were off to Round Valley. The area looked very familiar but with almost 2 feet of snow in the last week the trail was buried. From the Ranger station we could see tramped down snow leading in the direction of the trail, so we followed it.
The weather was warm in the sun, about 35 degrees and there was no wind in the lower elevations at the start of the hike. The snow against the rocks and the trees was really pretty with all of the white fresh snow.
After about an hour of hiking we ran into the group of about 30 hikers and we now knew who was breaking the snow trail with their snowshoes. We talked to them when they were on a break, met a couple of their leaders and found out is a was a mountaineering training group. We hiked along with hem up to Round Valley.
In the clearing in Round Valley we took a picture of their group and they took a picture of Sara and i with this awesome dropback of the peak. The group stopped to do some orienteering and we continuted on.
It was hard going now breaking trail ourselves. It was mostly post holing in about 1.5 to 2 feet of snow and you can see from our snow steps below. Without snowshoes we made it about another 1/3 mile and turned back.
Before turning back, we took a moment to enjoy the fresh snow. Sara made an awesome snow angel, and we had some food.
On the way down we passed these out houses. We couldn’t believe how much snow was on them and how buried they were from what we had seen in the summer.
About 20 minutes later we ran into a hiker and a volunteer ranger. She was looking for the path down and he was directing her. Since we were going the same way, we orientated ourselves with our GPS and headed down. She was only in town for about a day and did not have the proper gear to be up in the snow but was in pretty good shape. She grew up in Kalamazoo Michigan and was used to snow but had bit off more than she wanted for the day hike. We hiked with her down to the Ranger and Tram station and we parted ways.
We sat on the deck outside the tram station in the sun and ate some food we had left. We hiked about 5 miles in about 3 hours, and it felt like 10 miles in our legs. It was such an awesome day to be in Gods beautiful creation. Below is a view of the valley as we rode down the tram.
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