that's me along with matt, brenda, amir, clara, and chris at the top of mount san jacinto yesterday. my friend chris in redlands organized this eleven mile hiking expedition. i'd like to think he did it just for me.
those were taken during the aerial tram ride in palm springs. chris and i met the group at the base around 9 am. for $22.25 each, we all got an exhilarating spin up the mountain.
the trail to the peak is 5.5 miles from the tram station. at the 2.2 mile mark, we were approached by a couple of women to take a picture with this seriously important sign. wish you could hear amir impersonate arnold schwarzenegger during this photo session.
how awesome that picture would be if everyone could fit inside that tree. i think they would have if that one canadian wasn't eight feet tall.
a modern day john muir
i took very few pictures on this trip. the hike was difficult for me because of the altitude. plus i over-packed my bag with food and junk. chris ended up carrying nearly everything i brought. in fact, he took half the weight off my back before we even got on the tram. what a guy.
we totally lucked out on the weather. there wasn't one single cloud in the sky all day long. the temps hovered in a very comfortable range, even at the peak. i was most appreciative of the breezes; my slow crawl up the mountain would have been miserable without them.
our man in redlands
the trip was serendipitous in so many ways, most notably these three:
1. i left my headlights on at rei in rancho cucamonga and my car battery went dead some 1.5 hours later. just as i realized this, a guy pulled into the parking spot directly opposite me. and he just happened to have jumper cables.
2. fifteen minutes into the hike to san jacinto peak, i managed to lose my camera. i felt simultaneously stupid and lousy for keeping the group waiting while i back tracked all the way to the tram station to recover my eighty pound dslr.
3. chris lost left his trekking pole behind three separate occasions on this trip, with the last time being on the tram ride off the mountain. all we had to do was wait fifteen minutes for the next tram to bring the pole down.
clara+amir
aka the israelis
on top of the great luck, i enjoyed hanging with everyone in the group. no one gave me grief for wearing cotton socks or side glances for wearing a puffy white skirt. no one grimaced that i was too slow. the best part: no one belongs to the sierra club. a perfect trip through and through.
matt the giant canadian
and brenda the petite canadian
i took a couple of panorama sets but i'm too lazy to stitch them together. but i did upload an entire set on flickr in case you care to see more.
