5-10-16

1st…Happy Birthday to my friend, Karen! May 10th is her day & I hope it's fabulous in every way! 

I'm thankful we met several years ago, Karen. You & Charlie are family!! :-)

(photo from Karen & Charlie's AZ visit in April)

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Cactus to Clouds hike (part 2)...

The last 2 miles to the summit were the toughest…but we reached the top @ 17 miles.  

Mt. San Jacinto was completely fogged in with clouds. It was a cool effect but too cold to linger.

Proud of Team Low Voltage. We made it!

Happy on the summit!

To our surprise there were a LOT of other hikers (30-ish) on the peak. Most had hiked from the tram (making it a much shorter & easier endeavor than the C2C trail we did from Palm Springs with 10,400 ft gain). Even so…props to everyone who gets out to hike & challenge themselves!!

Wahoo!!

Now…let's get off this mountain! The cold set in for me & I was eager to get down to the tram. We still had 6 miles to hike (2 hours).  Today's Stats: 23 miles total. 12 hours including breaks. 10,600 feet total elevation gain on foot.

The Palm Springs Aerial Tram is pretty neat. It brings thousands of visitors up & down this mountain for amazing views plus opportunities to hike at the top of the tram & beyond. There is also a restaurant & bar to enjoy food & drinks. We warmed up with some good Irish Coffees! 

The tram brought us down, we UBER'd back to our car & promptly soaked in the hotel hot tub. So nice! On Sunday we had brunch in Palm Desert on El Paseo Street (which is like Rodeo Drive in LA). Afterwards hit the road, played "Would You Rather" on our drive & got back to Phx by 4pm. A weekend of good times!!