through the roof...

I was planning on a great post about my adventure up San Jacinto (10,834 ft) this weekend. Both Erica and Tara had races out of town, and Derek is off surfing in Costa Rica so that cut the San Diego contingent of our group to one - me! I thought I’d aim for some altitude training and climb San Jacinto peak in the Peninsula Ranges between San Diego and Palm Desert. If you’re very fit, you can hike 14+ miles from an elevation of 560 ft to the peak, which according to my hiking book, is the greatest elevation day-hike of any in the Lower 48. Or you can take the easy way, which is to take the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to the Ranger Hut at 8400 ft and then hike the rest of the way. Or you can do what I planned to do which is climb from about 6400 ft at Idyllwild to the top and back again.

Well, that was the plan. However …. “best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men” and all that. Friday morning I woke up with that fuzziness behind the eyes that generally means I need to start on the echinacea and lemon+honey. I hoped it was just a bit of a reaction to the vaccinations I had on Wednesday - yellowfever, Hepatitis A and tetanus - as my arm at the site of the jabs has been rather sore to day the least! But Saturday I woke with a head cold which was no better today and an eight hour hike did not sound like a whole bunch of fun. So instead of some scenic pictures of the mountains - you’ll have to wait until after Christmas for those - here’s a picture of Tara and Erica from last weekend, when we all hiked around Mission Trails in San Diego.

- Penny