✅ San Jacinto Peak (HPS 50/280) ?
✅ Cactus to the Clouds (C2C) ?
✅ Cactus to the Clouds to the Cactus (C2C2C) ?

I've been waiting to bag San Jacinto Peak until I could do C2C, because I wanted to take “the long way” up.  I was considering doing it this month, but had never really committed to anything. . .  and then I saw that the tram had reopened after the previous weekend's storm.  There was something about this that made me feel like now was the time.  For the rest of the week, I paid attention to the weather and the tram status, and was planning on starting early Friday morning.

I set my alarm for 1 AM; left my home at 1:50 AM; left my var at the museum at 3:50 AM; and I started off into the darkness alone.  My thoughts on the Skyline Trail:  Not that hard.  I wouldn't call it an easy trail, but the distance really mellows out the elevation gain until the last two miles.  Those two miles, though, were brutal.  It's pretty rare for me to have to take frequent breaks, but I found myself having to pause for a 30 second break every 5 – 10 minutes.

When I got up into Long Valley, I noticed that the tram had times listed for it's first and last rides, so I assumed that was further assurance that I would be able to hitch a ride down.  I continued on to San Jacinto Peak, doing my best to keep up a good pace.  I ended up summiting after about 9 hours, and was pretty damn tired at this point.  I hung out just below the summit with my summit slippers on, eating my high Calorie meal and getting ready for a trip to the tram.

It was on the way down that I ran into a lady that informed the tram was down, and my response was “The fuck you mean the tram is down?”  I didn't mean to be rude with her, but seriously!?

I started to speed up my pace as I made my way to the tram.  There, I found 6 guys that were all stranded as well, and were gearing up for a trip down the mountain.  I paused here, filled a water bottle from the sink in the bathroom (this gave me 1 L of good electrolyte water, and 1 L of tainted water that still needed to be treated), ate a snack, and ratcheted up my determination.  My goal was to make it down the Skyline Trail as fast as possible; ideally in 3 hours.

I made my way down at a blistering speed, and all the while had a moment with myself–  I went through a ton of emotions, including at one point actually sobbing about life choices.  While the adventure wrecked me physically, it also did a number to me mentally and emotionally; those ended up being good, though.

In the end, it took me 4 hours to get down the Skyline Trail, which put me back at my car right at 7 PM, and home at 9 PM.  This was 4 hours later than I wanted to be home to be able to walk our animals at decent intervals.  Scrappy Doo is a good boy, though, and didn't go in the house.

I'm glad I did this trail, and glad I was finally able to add San Jacinto Peak to my HPS (#50!).  Even though I only intended to do C2C, I'm kind of glad it worked out the way it did–  now I never have to go back to that trail again. 🙂