This Cactus to Clouds hike, to San Jacinto Peak at almost 11,000 feet in elevation, affords an interesting challenge for the extreme day hiker, going from the Palm Springs desert floor to one of the tallest mountain peaks in southern California! Are there any other places one can hike over 10,000 feet up in a continuous one day hike? It’s 16 miles up and 6 miles down to a tram, a welcome return trip to the bottom.
The environmental factors can be immense: Distance, vertical feet, heat, cold, heavy load of water, high altitude effects, and scrambling over parts of an unclear trail. And during winter snow is possible.
This Utube video describes Cactus to Clouds perfectly. Amazing!
Header image by Wattewyl [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons