SoCal has had a bad few months for snow, which meant San Jacinto was still easily hikeable (is that a word?) through most of January.  There was some light snow on the trail that was a little deeper in places, but microspikes were not needed.

The hike is typical SoCal forest until you get to maybe 9,000 feet, at which point the trees become more sparse and the trail weaves more through high altitude shrubbery of some kind. This was my favorite part of the hike, as the trail narrows down to single track and the views become much more expansive.

We summited later than we should have and had to hike most of the way out in the dark, but the plus side was getting to watch the sunset on the way down. Glad we brought our night time gear, because it got very cold.

One of my favorite hikes had a lot of fun.