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8 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | JULY 2021 By Rob Gardner, Resident The four of us — Gene, Mike, Steve, and I — started out at the foot of Mount San Jacinto from the Palm Springs side at first light of day. We were hiking an old trail (now called the Skyline trail) that had minimal use and was unmarked. Our destination? The top of Mount San Jacinto at an altitude of 10,834 feet. There was no water available along this rugged route to Long Valley which added to the difficulty. This leg of the climb was about 11 miles. It was just a matter of one foot in front of the other for an hour or so before the sun popped over the horizon and blasted us on the east side of the mountain. It is mostly old diorite and granite without any trees for about the first 8,000 plus feet of the climb. We hiked silently with a few short breaks to drink water from our canteens. We stayed on our feet and made note of the sight as we looked back over the Coachella Valley. Then we moved on. As the day went on, we made progress, and the air got hotter and hotter. We were all accustomed to the heat because we all lived in Palm Springs year round. We were hiking in April to take advantage of the longer hours of sunlight. We did sit down by some large boulders for a lunch break. We ate mostly dried fruit, raisins, peanuts, and anything else we grabbed from Gene's parents' health food store. Hey, the price was right. After a lunch break, we trudged on, not staying long so our muscles wouldn't tighten up. As we moved along, the trail started breaking up. There weren't any trail markers but Steve was good at reading the lay of the land as he took lead through difficult areas of ridges, gullies, canyons, and dead ends. We only made it to about 8,000 feet the first day, but at least we had reached some brush and other vegetation, having seen nothing but rock all day long. We were losing light and decided to camp out for the night at this point, but we were out of water and very thirsty. We needed water to go up further or back down! After heat all day long, it was getting cold with only shade and wind at the higher altitude. We decided two would go a bit further and seek out a water supply and the other two set up a little campsite for the night. I stayed back with Mike setting up camp while Gene and Steve went on a hunt for water. Time went by and it was dark when they returned with full canteens. They were excited that they had found a small snow patch in the shade just a short way up. The reason they took so long was the slow process of melting the snow into water. Now the wind was howling so we drank some water, crawled into our sleeping bags with our canteens and a handful of dried fruit, and sealed up for the night. I don't really know about the others, but it was a cold night for me. We had not brought a tent to save on weight. No regrets though. In the morning it was an early rise. We still needed to assault the peak, which was about an additional four miles and a 2,500-foot climb away. It was only 20 minutes to the patch of snow. We spent an hour there making more water by lighting a small fire and using our large metal cups before moving forward. Once we proceeded further, we were surprised that it was only another 20 minutes over the ridge and we were at Long Valley which was covered in snow and had a stream of running water! We all laughed at how close we had been the day before without knowing. We got all the water we could drink and carry and then proceeded on in the snow. We had some trouble as we sank into snow drifts, but once we found some solid snow it was a nice hike through the pine trees and up to the pile of boulders on the peak. It was so beautiful and clear there that we could see Catalina Island. Not much time for breaks; we needed to turn around and hike all the way back down to Why climb it? Because it's there. Rob Gardner's first climb leads to life-long journey

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