We woke early and quickly broke camp in Joshua Tree by 6:30 am. We had an hour plus drive to just outside of Palm Springs were we hoped to pick up the first tram up San Jacinto Peak. On the way we noticed a huge lenticular cloud hanging over the peak and I hoped the weather would hold for our hike.
We reached the tramway station with a little time to spare and found us on a car with only 4 others including the operator and one employee. Didn’t look like many people would be heading up to the summit today.
We watched the views spin by and the other car pass at the half way point.
Once at the 8,516 foot “Mountain Station” we left the tram car and headed outdoors. After finding the Adventure Center we rented two pairs of snowshoes and poles then headed to the ranger station to fill out a permit.
As we headed up towards Round Valley we began passing large groups of Boy Scouts who had camped out the prior night. They confirmed that some people had gone to the summit the day before and there should be a track the whole way. They also passed on the discouraging news that it had been raining at Round Valley.
After an hour of hiking we’d reached the Round Valley junction and spring. At 9,100 feet this was the highest Heidrun had reached on a hike yet.
We followed tracks toward the Wellman Divide then made a sharp right and traversed across Jean Peak’s slopes. We then found some divergent tracks and I decided to follow the ones that ran straight up the slope.
This was a little steeper than I should have taken a novice snowshoer on, but the snow was solid and other than a little balling on the underside, pretty grippy.
Once high on the ridge we had an excellent view of San Jacinto waiting for us along the crest.
We left the vicinity of Joan Peak and intersected the route coming from Tamarack Valley. The weather had really been tolerant with us so far and we’d only had a few sprinkles lower down. Now it began to snow and the wind picked up.
Right at noon I announced that we didn’t have any more up to climb and Heidrun looked a little shocked that we’d actually made it (she’d been turned back from some other big peaks recently).
Maybe the summit’s prayer flags had helped out, but we didn’t spend very long on top. The snowshoes were due back by 3:30p.
From the summit we zipped down Tamarack Valley and ran into a backcountry skier – the only other person we saw above the campgrounds. Our speedy descent was finished by 1:45pm, but not before running into a park ranger who wanted to see our permit and interrogate us on our route and if we’d stayed to the trail (covered with multiple feet of snow)! We even managed to cram into the 2pm car heading back down the mountain. Later that evening we had an excellent dinner at Stone Brewing Co which was also packed full with at least two teams from the Tour of California bike race celebrating the end of nine days of racing.
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