Mt. San Jacinto

Thursday, we did the two hour drive to Idyllwild on the pine covered slopes of the San Jacinto Mountains.  We spent two nights enjoyng the small town atmosphere, dining, and music.

We stayed in a little upstairs cabin at Silver Pines Lodge.

 Our cozy little room was reasonably priced.

We had a little deck, too.

 Since we had arrived at 10:00, we checked in and hit the trail up Devil's Slide Trail and over a ways on the trail to Tahquitz Peak.

Looking down on the iconic Lily Rock.

In the evening, we ate at Ferro Restaurant, and enjoyed the music of the trio playing.  Idyllwild always seems to have good music for such a small town, due in part to its big music and arts camps.

We got up early Friday morning and were on the trail at 8:00 AM. We decided to tackle the Marion Mt. Trail to the peak of Mt. San Jacinto.

You are responsible for knowing this (follow the arrow).

I think this might also be a bobcat stratch post.  We did see bobcat scat and tracks not too far away.

The Marion Mt. Trail is only 5.75 miles to the top of the peak, but it climbs from 6,280 feet to 10,834 feet in that distance, a gain of 4,554 feet!  We were not sure we would make it, and set a turn around time of 2:00.

A cheerleader along the way gave us a staccato drumming with his front feet.

Around 12:30 we could see over the other side of the mountain past the tram station and down to Palm Springs below.  The telephoto of my small camera makes it all appear a lot closer than it is.

At 1:00, we made the top.  I have to admit the altitude was really affecting me the last couple hours, making me have brief periods of dizziness, slight nausea, and pounding heart.  Gail was unaffected.
I guess I need more time to acclimate.

We ate lunch and enjoyed the clear sky views from the Salton Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The temperature at the top was in the forties, but the air was calm, and the sun warming. It was perfect weather for a steep hike.

At 1:30, we decided we better hustle down the mountain before it got dark.

 As the sun started to set, we got a little alpine glow going.

 We were still on the trail when the sun did set, but didn't have much further to the bottom.

Gail stopped me to point out this interesting mass of roots.

 We did it!  (but probably never again)

 We had a leisurely Saturday morning hanging around the lodge, enjoying the mild weather, and having brunch at Tommy's Kitchen.

Even a touch of fall!

We stopped at the Idyllwild HELP Thrift Store on the way out of town.  Gail was ecstatic to find this Ice-O-Matic like her father used to have.  What luck, it had just been donated the day before!

We stopped in Anza , an Indian reservation out in nowhere, on the way home.  I was hoping to find rusty metal tools, etc. for my welding projects.  I did find a few, but also found we had a totally dead battery when we got back to the car.  We quickly got a jump from a kind man, and made it to the only auto parts store in town, 5 minutes before closing, to get a new battery.  Lucky or unlucky?  I'm thinking lucky!