Cactus to clouds is a trail that begins in Palm Springs, CA, then ascends to San Jacinto Peak. This is considered one of the highest & Hardest elevation day hikes in the United States and part of the Pacific Crest Trail. If you are seeking a challenge, an adventure, or want to train for mt. whitney, then this is the hike for you! In this blog I will go over my experience on Cactus to Clouds!
Location: Palm Springs, California
Starting Point: Palm Springs Art Museum @ 520 ft
Round trip: 32 miles
San Jacinto Peak: 10,833 ft
Elevation Gain: 10,313 ft
Difficulty: Highly Strenuous
Gear List
Here is a list of a few things you may or may not need on this trail depending on your intentions:
Day / Multi-Day Hike:
– CamelBak
– High Top Hiking Shoes
– Light snacks: dates, trail mix, sandwiches, hard fruits, granola bars, berries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers (for hydration).
– Sleeping bags (it gets cold if you decide to sleep overnight) 0 degrees – 30 degrees.
– Hammock (if want to sleep above ground)
– Stainless steel water bottles 64 oz
– Toilet Paper/baby wipes
– Extra pairs of socks
– Some warm clothing if staying over night.
– Extra pair of clothing
– Trekking Poles (Highly Recommended)
– A Tent
– CAMERA!
Ecological Change
Cactus to Clouds or the skyline trail is a beautiful trail that gives you the chance to literally see the change in the ecosystem as you rise up in elevation. I am such a nerd when comes to nature and science so this was an amazing experience for me. hike Starting at the Palm Springs Art Museum, everything begins in the desert.
You see rocks and shrubs; this is all you see for a while. while hiking you’ll see a gorgeous view of Palm Springs and the surrounding mountains with windmills and solar panels in the distance. The mountains across the valley are brownish red especially at sunset/sunrise.
You’ll see tarantulas coming up too if you are lucky! The makes for a very great scenic hike.
Now, as you rise up in elevation you will start to see more vegetation and little trees will start to spring up little by little and eventually you will go from brown shrubs to green bushes and tall trees; brown rocks/boulders turning into grayish silver works of art.
This reinforced what I learned in science class! In Southern California, vegetation with tall trees is only found in a certain elevation level of about 4,800 ft and above. If you don’t know, now you know!
Half Way Point – Park Ranger Station
This hike can get very steep so you will definitely be getting a leg workout. Once you make it past the tree line, you will eventually find yourself in the camping grounds where the Park ranger station is at and the aerial tramway to take you back down the mountain if need be. the tram tickets aren’t too expensive about $30 a pop.
This is the one rally point where almost all trails on this mountain connects. You can refill your water at the Ranger station just in case you run into problems like I did or you just were extremely thirsty coming up! This is one of the only legal camp grounds in the area and you will need a permit to do so. Personally, I camped off trail which is frowned upon but, you get more of a wild experience this way and avoid having to pay for permits!
From this point, you can continue hiking up trail for a few hours and you will make it to the peak with one of the most beautiful views in Southern California with surrounding valleys, lakes, cities and San Gorgonio right across only being split by I10. This is one of my favorite mountains of all times because of its energy and beauty! I literally hiked this peak 4 times already and I will hike it again!
P.S. Check out reddit and the alltrails app for more personal experiences and to get a detailed trail map.
Personal Experience
To begin, majority of the hikers that we met on this trail did this hike in one full day starting as early as 2 a.m. with light camelbaks. My experience is a bit different. There was total of 3 in my group (only myself and another friend finished) and we decided to enjoy the hike by extending the day trip to a total of 3 days (2 nights and the last day hike down). This way we could get a camping trip out of it while not exhausting too much of our energy.
This method came with a price, though. Our packs ended up weighing any where from 50-80 lbs! Talk about over packing (Pack only what you NEED or you’ll be regretting it on the way up)! While hiking up the trail, other hikers coming down would look at us like we were crazy 😝 ! This extra weight made hiking up more difficult but, I did not mind as this gave me a better workout getting to the top but our pace was slower than most!
Day One
We started hiking around 11 am starting from the museum (recommend to start earlier around 2-7 am) and we parked on the free park section along side the road of a golf course I believe in Palm Springs. There is a parking garage if you don’t mind paying for parking in front of the palm springs art museum.
It was a gorgeous day outside but, we ran into some problems. First, our pace was extremely slow because we had to wait on one person in our group. I believe he underestimated the incline and his body’s shape as he was going up. It was often that my friend and I were waiting until the other caught up. This kept on happening until sunset where we were forced to make camp in the area as we did not meet our first days objective.
In addition to that, he ended up drinking all his water which we had to share with him too. What made the situation worse was that I was carrying a plastic gallon of water when a sharp shrub pierced it and all my water began to drain only relying on one persons water source!
When we set camp that night, we slept on the floor under the stars because our plan was to sleep in hammocks up in the tree line.
Over all, I am grateful that we got to stop at this point because the stars were gorgeous and the sunrise over Palm Springs was gorgeous as well.
Note: Make sure everyone in the group is aware of the difficulty and make sure that you are physically in shape to hike. You do not want to be that “guy” ..
Day Two
at sunrise, the sky was filled with a gorgeous orange highlight on the horizon followed by blue fading into the ending night sky. From there it turned pink and so did the surrounding mountains.
At this point, one traveler in our group decided to head back down the mountain because he could not see himself pushing for another 2 days. We split ways and continued pushing forward.
The 2nd day was the most beautiful for us because we finally got to see the full transition from desert shrubs to green forest and huge silver rocks. It was amazing. We started seeing more flowers and insects but the good kind. The nice little butterflies.
Eventually we made it to the ranger station and refilled our waters (well we shared one water source). Here, we picked a spot with shade on a boulder with a view and took a two hour nap before hiking up the mountain. We continued climbing up until we were about 3 to four miles from the peak and decided to pick a spot to set up camp. This way we can relax and enjoy the peak in the morning.
We ended up setting up our hammocks in an amazing spot. There was a tree next to some rocks off the beaten path and it showed the view of the mountains ridges, forest and the beautiful California horizon. The down side to this was when nightfall hit. We were in direct flow of wind so we were freezing to death! HAHA! Now for next time, camp with wind blockage.
Day 3
at sunrise, we hid our packs and hiked to the peak so that we can get there faster. before I talk about the san jacinto peak, i want to point out the gorgeous sunrise that followed. we woke up to a pink skyline with the mountain ridges exposed and clouds looking like a lake hugging around the mountain range of san jacinto. We slept looking in the direction of the city of hemet and I am grateful to have witnessed such beauty that mother nature has created for us.
The san jacinto peak, in my opinion, is one of the most beautiful peaks in Southern California (and I climbed quite a lot of mountains all over california). You know you reached the peak when you see a Log cabin with a view facing 29 Palms! I will let your experience at the peak speak for itself.
Afterwards, we climbed down to the ranger station and saw that we had killed too much time hanging out on the peak. We decided to take the Tramway down because hiking down the mountain would cause us to make it home too late as we had obligations. The tramway tickets was pretty expensive too.
If i remember correctly, it cost us about $25 per person to go down one way. We took the tramway down and then Ubered to our car and left from there. I do recommend riding the tramway at least once because it was worth the views we saw on the way down but if hiking all the way down is your preferred method then by all means!
In The End
I highly recommend to hiking cactus to clouds trail if you haven’t done so already. There are multiple ways to hike this mountain but, Cactus to Clouds is the most challenging, most beautiful and causes the most deaths.
There is another trail that I enjoy hiking; you can enter from the city of Hemet and drive up the mountain. This is called the Deer Spring trail in Idywild which is about 19.1 miles round trip.
This trail is easier but not easy! I hope you enjoyed this blog post and I would love to hear about your experiences on the cactus to clouds hike! Take care 👋