Cactus To Clouds was one of the most physically and mentally challenging hikes I have ever done. We started a little past 12am at the Palm Springs Art Museum and reached San Jacinto peak at 2pm. Even though we hiked through the night the trail is pretty well marked by silver spray markings on the rocks. And with your headlamp on there really easy to find, so just follow the silver markers. The trail is also pretty well worn so if you get sidetracked just look for the footprints. It’s best to start this hike during the night because you don’t want to be hiking in desert temperatures that reach over 100 degrees with no shade and water for 10.5 miles. That’s suicide. You start at night so by the time you reach the higher elevations you’ll already have beat the heat below. I would not recommend doing this hike during the summer months at all. April would be the last month to attempt this hike before the heat arrives. Even at 2am I was already wearing just a t-shirt, so you could imagine how it would be midday during the months of June-Aug. If you do decide to attempt this trail in the right conditions please bring at least 6 liters of water. I went through my water so quick. The good thing is you can refill your water at the Long Valley Ranger station and at the Tram. So please bring enough to last you to that point. After completing 10.5 miles with over 8,000ft of elevation gain on the Skyline Trail to the Long Valley Ranger station I was pretty much running off of steam. The last 2 miles up to Grubs Notch is a beast, because for 2 miles your going up this gnarly climb. Mind you, after this section your ONLY halfway though. From the LV Ranger station we still had to hike an additional 5.5 miles up another 2,500ft to the summit, and then back down to the tram. Once at the peak my body was taxed, my brain was scrambled, and to be honest I don’t even know how I pushed myself back to the tram. I had to muster every ounce of energy I had just to move one foot in front of the other. The only thing that seemed to be helping was talking about the food we were going to eat once we got back to town. All in all we hiked 23 miles with 10,700ft of elevation gain to reach a peak of 10,843ft with ZERO sleep and over 15 hours on the trail. If it wasn’t for the amazing human beings that I hiked with this definitely would of been much harder. Hiking with friends that encourage you and motivate you can mentally be a huge benefit, and I’m thankful for all of them. Bach, Robin, Mike, Lyn, Ted, Ed, and Josh, you know who you are. Today I woke up feeling grateful and a badass. It’s amazing what we can accomplish if we put ours minds to it. My San Jacinto via C2C is in the bag!

Thanks Lyn for organizing this hike.