Cactus to Clouds Trail - Palm Springs, CA

The first morning here, Trent and I got up early to go for a hike.  We sat on the balcony at 6am, drinking coffee and eating oatmeal, staring at the views of the San Jacinto Mountains in-front of us.  We snuck out of the condo, not to wake Carter and my brother and we headed up the road to the base of the trail.  I have been running this trail for the 4yrs I have been blessed enough to visit this area.  I love this trail!!  It is a tight, single track trail that is very rocky, steep and switchbacks up, up, up, up and up.  There are lots of beautiful cactus and lizards along the route and the views of Palm Springs and the surrounding areas are spectacular!

I usually only go for 1-2hrs return trip when I run it on my own.  Trent and I decided we wanted to get to the first peak and figured on approx. 3-3.5hrs.  It ended up taking us 3hrs total.  We did the first 3300 feet, 6km in 1.5hrs. The climb is grueling - but worth every bit of effort! From the desert bottom to the highest peak in the San Jacinto Mountains this trail covers 20miles and 10,000 feet from start to finish.  We have yet to do the whole trail and would need to come later in the spring because there is still lots of snow at the top.  Two years ago we took the tram up and hiked from the base of the tram.  The base of the tram is at approx. 8500 feet and the highest peak is still 11,000 feet. 

Two years ago we also did a huge road ride in behind the San Jacinto's.  The route started downtown Palmy and looped 170km and had 7500 feet of climbing in it.  It was a very hard ride but again, worth every moment.