Gut Check! Cactus to Clouds: San Jacinto Summit

A friend told me about this hike. I had said I wanted a real gut check day hike. Needless to say, she delivered!

Rallied up a group of mildly insane and spontaneous hikers to join me on this epic, gut-checking adventure. One woman literally made a last minute decision to drive 2 1/2 hours to meet at the trailhead as her original plans of summiting Mt Baldy fell through. She had no time to prepare for this, yet she summited.

We collectively decided on a 0100 alpine start to get through the desert portion before sunrise. We pushed through, and briefly stopped to enjoy the view of the morning sunrise at around 6000 ft. We took a 15 minute break just before the push up to Grubbs Notch to refuel and rehydrate. Reaching Grubbs Notch was quite the sigh of relief, thinking the hard part was behind us, but boy were we wrong!

Heading to the Ranger station, we passed the tram station, and collectively expressed how nice it will be to finally be heading down, yet that stop still felt like an eternity away. After topping off our water reservoirs and filling out the permit at the Ranger station, we embarked on what we thought was going to be a relatively chill 5.5 miles to the San Jacinto summit.

Step after step, one foot in front of the other, our bodies began to slow down at the caloric and oxygen deprivation was taking is toll on us. Yet, we maintained our bearings, and kept pushing though the discomfort as we were all stoked for that dopamine rush that summiting a beautiful peak gives you.

We stopped at Round Valley to refuel, rehydrate, regroup, and catch a quick rest. We were exhausted. I looked at my GAIA GPS and saw that we had possibly gone off trail and missed the more direct route up to the summit, so we back tracked to find it, following the GPS; however, it turns out that it was an old Ranger trail that is non-existent anymore so we redirected to the other route up to Wellman Divide.

One foot after another brought us up to the peak. And what can I say, it’s is a glorious feeling of achievement! Mount San Jacinto is absolutely stunning!

We regrouped a the tram station, I had a coffee, gatorade, and two pulled pork sandwiches, and it was a meal I felt was well earned! In the celebratory manner, the tram ride down was epic in itself with great music, great vibes, and a great view of Coffman’s Crag.

The GAIA GPS stats for this hike is as follows: 20.56 miles; 16:55:42 total time; 10396 elevation gain! Simply incredible!