Early last week SoCal had an excessive heat warning in the High Desert and Inland Empire. On Tuesday Courtney and I hiked our 5th peak, San Jacinto, and it was diffidently a hot day on the mountain. Once again I found myself struggling in the heat, even with my trekking umbrella I was overheating. I was forced to take longer and more frequent breaks; ended up taking us 5 hours to hike to the peak (hiked it in 3.5 hours last time).
This is my 3rd time hiking to San Jacinto's Peak; I love this mountain, the incredible views it offers you not only at the peak but also from Wellman Divide and the trail that goes up to San Jacinto Peak, and then there is the wildlife.
It only took us 2.5 hours to hike back down to the tram from the peak. It was still pretty warm on the mountain and my body was still hot but not overheating. I decided I needed to think about some else other than the temperature of my body so I decided to focused on finding some deer, it was the perfect time of day for them to be our grazing near the meadows. I saw the 1st deer when we got back to Wellman Divide, then we saw it again not too far down the trail. Saw a 2nd deer way out in a meadow through the trees then a 3rd deer in another meadow. See saw a couple of grey squirrels along the trail as well.
Five peaks have now been successfully completed, one more to go.