Walking the Cactus to Clouds route to Palm Springs, California.

The steep trail near the top of Palm Springs Airport was covered in inches of spongy fallen needles and filled with ankle pine cones. He was also shady, who felt remarkable after the first seven miles of exhaustive cactus to throw away the clouds offered a little more than a relief of Flittlebush Leaf.

I had already thrown 7,549 vertical feet and still had about 3,000 to go to the top of Mount San Jacinto, a cranite crag that falls west of Palm Springs, California.

So my third cactus in clouds, I had chosen one day in mid -November and the conditions were perfect. The 22 -mile hiking is constantly uphill for the first 16 miles, climbing from the desert floor to the top of 10,834 feet, then six miles and 2,400 vertical feet to the top of the tram, culminating in a rear walking for $ 14.

I started my journey near the Palm Springs Museum at an altitude of 482 feet Immediately after sunrise At 6:41 AM, carrying enough water to last to the first water source, a Ranger station at 8,400 feet, and I had a lot of jackets to deal with the changes of wild temperature from bottom to top.

People have a variety of reasons to attempt Cactus in clouds: it is one of the most biodegradable hiking in the country. It is an unusual wildlife experience on the edge of an urban area. But perhaps above all, there is the absolute boldness of hiking. In my previous climbs, each after a significant emotional or natural trauma – diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, divorce, completion of Stage Breast Cancer treatment – I was motivated by the idea that my commitment to this challenge would leave me. And if I did? Well, this was proof that I could handle nothing.

This time, my MS was in recession, my marriage was fulfilled and I was without cancer for almost nine years. More than 15 years after my first cloud cactus, it was finally for the landscape instead of me. I had stuck a pocket driver for the San Jacinto mountain plants and I was planning to spend time to stop and smell Cedar.

While the full cactus route to clouds is only for the extremely suitable, you can also increase its sections. Walk the lower mile from the trail to a picnic area, then turn. Or drive the tram to its top station and then climb to Mount San Jacinto and back. You can even pass to the top of the tram, then drive it down, saving the summit for the next day, as I did this time due to sudden foot pain. Each offers yields such as Forever Views of the Coachella Valley and the opportunity to locate Cactus Wrens, Cooper’s hawks and Golden Eagles.

While the lifting of Mount San Jacinto is not remarkable, the difference at altitude from the base at the summit is. The mountain increases about 10,400 vertical feet to about six horizontal miles. This steep slope, in addition to being almost the equivalent of climbing to Mount Everest, represents the unusual variety of vegetable life as it goes through four life zones.

The trail begins between desert species such as the barrel cactus and the mesh, followed by Chaparral, Scrub Oak and Manzanita. Then comes a mixed pine forest. At the summit, the trees grow smaller, with altitude and elements, and include Limber Pine, which blooms wherever cannot.

“The environment and life look very differently down in the desert of Colorado-Sotona than at the top of Mount San Jacinto,” said Melanie Davis, a field botanist with the California Biology Center at the University of California, Riverside, a few days before I pass. But they are among the zones that are the most interesting, he said. “There will be the greatest biodiversity.”

Ms. Davis was right. Between 7,000 and 8,000 feet, the green color came in a mind-boggling set of shapes, textures, shades and sizes and with a series of unexpected smells. It was like hiking through a bowl of mixed salad grass: cedar, manzanita, Oak and Agave, with Jeffrey Pines adding only one hint of butter to the air.

The conditions that make the cactus in clouds remarkable also make it dangerous. Hikers on the trail have died of dehydration and exposure. “We get about a death annually,” said Eric Holden, a volunteer for the Riverside Mountain Rescue, one of the four search and rescue teams that respond to hiking hiking on the route.

To protect both hikers and rescuers, Mount San Jacinto State Park closed part of the route under its summer power (triple temperatures at the bottom) and winter (snow and frozen conditions at the top). In 2024, the trail closed in early July and reopened on November 4.

There is a small shade for the first 7,000 vertical feet and no water for 10 miles. “One of the biggest killers is hikers who began to realize that they do not have the physical condition and return,” Mr Holden said. “It may have been cooler when they started at 3 in the morning, but now they don’t feel well and walking at temperatures that could easily be over 100 degrees.”

In winter, snow can make the path difficult to follow, especially at 1,000 feet below the top of the tram, and hikers have taken wrong among the rocks. I stayed on the path in this section following a piece of GPS from previous hiking cactus.

The Backpacker Magazine invites Cactus to connect the fifth hard hiking in America. It takes the most hikers between 12 and 16 hours. I tried to have fun from the relentless climb by finding exactly what kind of manzanita woke up my legs, but it only did so much to get me out. I sat down to rest on a flat boulder 6,000 feet above the trail, next to what was either a pink-oak or a green manzanita leaf.

At least I was hiking. Most experienced hikers understand that while lifting is hard work, downhill is completely punishment. In fact, the cactus in the clouds came to exist only because much of the descent takes place in the tram.

“We were dedicated hikers and we are always looking for a challenge,” said Sue Birnbaum, one of the six members of the Coachella Valley Hiking Club who first completed the annual Cactus to Cloud Challenge in 1993.

This challenge, an “excellent super day of hiking”, linked three existing trails-the museum, the horizon and the mount San Jacinto Peak Trails, crossing a mixture of local, state and federal land and ownership owned by Indian detention Agua Caliente.

Unhappy

A paradox of the cactus in clouds: it’s better when there are no clouds. They embrace views and, sometimes, the path itself. This ascent also kept a different kind of paradox for me. It was the first time I had ever passed on the top trail separately, but I felt a pride, because I had heard my body and dug my wicked foot.

Against a Pacific Ocean panorama, the glittering sea of ​​Salton, and the sharp, sacred Tahquitz peak, the beautiful cauliflower -shaped clouds floating thousands of feet down. With the sunset about 90 minutes away, they were caught and reflected shades that you will usually see in a spoonful of mango ice cream.

Despite the warm oranges that radiate in the sky, the summit was frozen, with wind gusts. I was a package in three jackets, including one hood under the inflatable coat, and I would have gladly accepted another. As long as I wanted to stay, I wanted even more to avoid the cryopresaver.

I went behind the blocks on the trail and showed myself down to the tram, crossing a cluster of what I found as a bush chinquapin. The pocket driver told me that his fruits taste like chestnut. The next time I do the clouds, I will be sure I will stop and try them.

If you go

The trail begins just north of the Palm Springs Museum of Art, about six and a half miles from the base of the tram. After hiking, you can use rides such as Uber and Lyft to return to the trail parking lot.