Tangential Adventures

On Sunday morning, we woke up with the sun, and were both pleased to note that temperatures overnight had dipped, but were probably only in the 30s, despite having set up camp at about 6500′ elevation. J had an uncharacteristic burst of morning energy and decided to get up and tromp a bit to a rock she had discovered the day before, to watch the sun rise over the local ridges.

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We woke up in Desert Hot Springs after a night in a hotel, and finalized our decision to head to the San Jacinto mountains and figure out someplace to camp and hike. We loaded up the car, grabbed breakfast at the Salvadoran place again, picked up a few supplies at the grocery store, and hit the road.

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After a long but fairly comfortable night of sleep, we got up fairly early and struck our camp. Fueled by an energy bar, and lured by the thought of a hot breakfast back at the car, we set off.  The morning sun felt good, and the skies were much clearer. We retraced our steps relatively uneventfully, and as we were nearing the last stretch of the hike out, J decided we should explore what looked like an old mine up on the hillside. We scrambled up the crumbling remains of an old mining road, and discovered around six old mine shafts in various states from open-but-sketchy, to bricked off, to incomplete. Unarmed with guide books, we speculated about what they might have been mining. Lots of iron-heavy rocks, near some mines, lots of quartz near others. J thought the quartz was a good sign for gold, and it turned out to have been a gold operation that operated from about 1900 to 1938.

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Writing this post at the end of day 4… yesterday was our busiest day so far. We woke at Jumbo Rocks campground after a pretty chilly night, probably in the upper or mid 20s. When we got up the first time around 6:15, everything was covered in frost. We stared at the sunrise for a bit and decided to go back to sleep until it warmed up a bit.  It was much warmer when we got up the second time, so we set out sleeping bags and tent to dry in the sun while we had a hot breakfast and sorted gear for the day’s adventures.

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