Cactus to Clouds an Epic Hike

Since I started hiking, about seven months after my first marathon back in 2000, I have always wanted to do this hike called "Cactus to Clouds." I first heard about it while talking with a hiker I met at the top of San Gorgonio Peak. He told me about this hike were one could go from near sea level to almost 11,000 feet in a single day hike. He said he tried to do it at least once a year, usually in the late spring or early fall. I looked the hike up on the internet and several local hiking books. They all said it was one of the toughest day hikes one could do and that it should be done with someone else who had done it before as the trail gets quite faint at times, with a lot of false trails made by the local wildlife such as dear and mountain goats.

The first 9.6 miles of the hike ascend 7900 feet for an average incline grade of 15.6%. Since there are some relatively flat areas of the trail and even some bits of downhill at times this entails climbing some grades in excess of 20% at times.

The day of the hike was Saturday, October 27, 2013. This would be almost exactly 13 years after I had first heard about it and now the time had finally arrived.

Several of our group had spent the night in Palm Springs, CA as the hike begins at the back of the Palm Springs Art Museum Parking Lot. The rest of our group met each other and drove in together from Redlands, about a 50 minute drive. Most of us got up that morning at about 2:00am. We left Redlands at around 3:20am. We met the rest of the group at the museum and by the time we were all packed up and ready to start it was about 4:40am, and pretty dark. It was also about 60 degrees which was actually just a little warm at first.

We donned our headlamps and began the trek. It was immediately apparent that this was going to be a steep and long hike. It didn't take long for our heart rates to climb and we had started at only about 450 feet above sea level. What would it be like when we reached 6,000 feet and above?

The trail became faint in several places very early on, mostly because it was quite rocky and not a lot of vegetation. I was leading and got us off on a wrong turn. We then had to back track a bit and Dev took over as he had the first part of the trail on GPS with his phone. This helped out quite bit as the trail was pretty tricky to spot at times. We quickly caught on to the fact that someone had blazed some of the rocks with blotches of white paint so they could be spotted a little farther ahead and this also helped out.

Dev, being young and in better shape, was setting a pretty tough pace for us as my heart rate was climbing to about 150 which is my maximum range for a marathon. I knew that I couldn't sustain that HR for more than about 4 hours so I commented that we should slow down a bit that I could not keep that pace up for over 12 hours or more. So Dev still went ahead scouting the trail while I led the rest of us at a more reasonable pace of around a 130-135 hear rate. Dev would wait for us whenever he was about to get out of sight.

We took short one to two minute breaks about every half hour or so and about every two hours we took a 10 minute or more break. After we had climbed for about an hour it was really awesome to look back toward the city lights from our elevated height! Below is a picture just before sunrise.

As with all hikes there are some who are slower and faster or having a good day or not so good day. So it was with our group. But we would always try to keep those behind in visual or hearing range and when we would lose sight or sound of them we would hold up until they caught back up to us. It was not a race but neither did we want to be in cold darkness any longer than necessary on the way back.

For the most part the trail was a relentless uphill trek but there were a few breaks here and there. The first 2 hours of the hike were in mostly darkness and then when the sun came out it began to warm up quickly. At least it was fall. The predicted high for the day at Palm Springs was 91 and we knew we would not get anywhere close to that, but still the sun would beat on us for the next 3.5 hours as there was no tree cover.

The last 2 miles of the hike to the saddle, just before the tram, were probably the most intense as far as elevation climb goes, but thankfully we did have some tree cover from time to time on this part. I can only imagine the difficulty encountered for those who try this in the heat of the summer. Some have actually died or have had to be rescued off this side of the mountain for underestimating how difficult it is and not taking enough food and water with them. Most of us took close to 1.5 gallons each with us and many said they went through all or most of it by the time we got to the tram 8 hours into the hike.

There are some pretty spectacular views of the San Bernardino Mountain Range to the north when doing this hike. Below are a few pictures.

Those last 2 miles of the initial 9.6 miles to the saddle took close to 2 hours to complete. It was very steep and rocky, with some places requiring a little pulling with the arms and hands up and over boulders etc. We took breaks a little more often on this section and at one point had a fairly long nutrition break.

After reaching the saddle at about 8300 foot elevation we took another 10 minute break and then headed out on the short .5 miles to the tram station. A lot of hikers call it quits at this point and take the tram back down to the parking lot, about 4 miles from Palm Springs and about 7 miles from where our vehicles were parked. We still had an 11 mile hike in front of us.

At the tram station, we took a very long break and most refilled water bottles etc. After our long break at the tram station we continued on for hour final 5.5 mile trek to the summit of San Jacinto Peak at 10, 834 feet. Even though this section was only about 2500 feet over the next 5 miles, a much less steep ascent than we had just accomplished, we were also at a much higher altitude and already tired from the earlier steep ascent. It was now after 1pm and we knew that we would probably have a little darkness again on the way back.


This section of the hike had quite a bit of tree cover and combined with the higher altitude it made for a much cooler trek. After about 2-3 miles in it got cold enough that I decided to put on my wind breaker and gloves and I was glad I did as it would only get cooler from there. Once we reached the intersection from the trail coming from Humber Park to the south side of the mountains from Idlewild, CA we had some more great views.

From here it was on up to the summit. We fully intended to just continue on to the summit and eat a good snack there but a little over a half mile from the summit most of u, including me, were beginning to feel the effects of glycogen depletion and we decided to take a much needed nutrition break. After about a 10 minute break we made out final assault on to the peak. Just before the peak there is a small rock cabin for rangers and hikers to be able to take shelter in from severe weather. Just past the cabin the trail ends and one has to climb a hundred feet or more scrambling over large boulders to reach the summit.

Finally we reached the summit of San Jacinto. While it was a bit cold, thankfully the wind was not blowing badly so we could keep our footing much easier and not get quite as cold as it could have been. Here are some pictures from the top. The two oldest from our group were Warren Johns and me, Russ Barber at the ages of 68 and 60 respectively. I am to the left in the pictures of the two of us. We both figure that we are in about 3:50 marathon shape at the time if that gives you any indication of the shape you need to be in to do this hike successfully without killing yourself.

The trek back down the boulders to the trail can be a bit precarious but it is not to bad as long you you don't hurry. From the trail back to the tram seems to be a very easy trek compared to everything else we had done that day. About half way back Dragana and I left the rest of the group behind and began running back. Shortly we ran into Tito who was waiting at a fork in the trail, not wanting to take the wrong one he had waited for the group to catch up. He had gone ahead earlier. We left our headlamps off until about 6:30pm when we just could not quite make out the trail enough to make sure of our footing. Even with a headlamp the shadows can make for unpredictable results in figuring out the footing of the trail, but we were able to keep a bit of a jog going and when not jogging we were walking quite fast. We made it back to the tram station at about 7pm for a total of about 14.5 hours for the whole ordeal. The others arrived about 10 minutes later and we all gave each other high fives and hugs. It truly was an epic experience. Almost all of the others said they would probably never do it again but were glad they had done it at least once. I suspect they will change their minds in the days to come as the bad parts of the memory fade and mostly good memories remain. We had a bit of a fiasco waiting for a cab that never came setting us back about 60 minutes more than it would have. Next time we will have a car at the parking lot and shuttle back and forth.

Here is a link to my Garmin Connect page where you can view all the stats from the hike: C2C Hike Garmin Connect .

As to the difficulty of this hike, about half of us had done Whitney within the last two years and all felt that this hike was definitely tougher than Whitney. Backpacker magazine considers it to be the 5th toughest day hike in the united states Americas Hardest Day Hikes . All those in our group were runners and capable of running a full marathon.

I definitely suggest that you have a least one person who has done the hike to the tram station with you, as this will greatly help in finding the trail. 

Happy Trail,

Russ