The hook
From the desert floor in Palm Springs, one of the steepest big climbs in the country rises more than ten thousand feet to an alpine summit, and John Muir thought the view from the top the finest on Earth.
01Why it's worth it
San Jacinto Peak stands at 10,834 feet, the second-highest point in Southern California, close enough to Palm Springs that on a summer day you can stand in hundred-degree desert and look straight up at snow. Muir wrote that the view from San Jacinto was the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth, and from the granite summit, with the Coachella Valley two vertical miles below and ranges stacked to every horizon, it's hard to argue. There are two ways up. The gentle one rides the aerial tramway to 8,500 feet and hikes the last five and a half miles through pine forest to the top. The other is Cactus to Clouds, which starts on the desert floor and climbs about 10,300 feet in sixteen miles, one of the greatest elevation gains of any day hike in the country and genuinely dangerous, a route that puts hikers in the hospital most years when they run out of water on the exposed lower half. Pick your version honestly.
02How to experience it
For the reasonable version, take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway up and hike from the mountain station. You'll want a wilderness permit, free from the state park, and an early start. Cactus to Clouds should only be attempted in the cool months, before dawn, by very fit hikers carrying far more water than seems sane, and most people ride the tram down rather than descend on foot. Snow lingers up high into spring. Either way, it's the great climb of the desert.