Henderson, Shannon, Garstin Loop

December 21, 2009

With Christmas break, I had my hands full with bored college students. I decided to try to keep them busy with some outdoor activities. In order to humor old dad, we decided to take a hike. Because I was on stand-by duty at work, we couldn't go very far, so we chose the trails at the south end of Palm Springs for our hike. Since we wanted to get a good little workout, we chose the Henderson, Shannon, Garstin loop.

My hiking partners waiting at the trailhead

We parked off Bogert Trail and headed up the Henderson Trail. The temperatures were mild, but the humidity was up, so it seemed like a much warmer day than it really was.

Sign at the start of the Henderson Trail

The first part of the trail is fairly level, in fact the entire trail has very little overall elevation gain. It makes a short elevation gain and then contours along the base of the hills.

One of the prominent points along the trail

With the easy going we were able to have a good time visiting and enjoying the views while we were getting warmed up for the steeper sections to come.

We weren't the only ones out enjoying the day, horses in the wash

As always, we were impressed by the history of the trails in this area. Most of the hiking trails in the Palm Springs area were established by the Los Compadres horse riding group and we owe a debt of gratitude for all the hard work they have done over the years to create and maintain these trails.

An old sign along the trail

Before too long we were approaching the end of the Henderson Trail and we could see a sign in the distance. I've seen the sign many times before, but what I didn't recognize, was the two objects on the top of the posts.

Approaching the sign, note the objects on the posts

When we arrived at the sign we saw that someone had balanced some rocks on the posts. I've noticed that building rock towers is becoming more and more popular in recent years, I guess it's some sort of artistic/creative thing.

Rocks on the sign posts

Unfortunately the sign was too weathered to read. We stopped for a quick water break and and noticed that the sign for the Shannon Trail was missing and the only signs we did see were telling us that in order to help protect the bighorn sheep, dogs are not allowed on this trail.

Dogs prohibited signs

We then started up the Shannon Trail. One of the great things about this trail is how quickly it climbs in a very short distance. Of course if your not in good shape, you may think it's not so great. I'm of the mind that if I'm gasping for breath while hiking, everything is normal and I don't worry about it, I know it must be good for me.

View of Palm Springs from the Shannon Trail

Another thing that I like about this trail, besides the elevation gain is the fact that you go up a narrow ridge, which makes me think I'm climbing a big mountain in some exotic corner of the world. Come to think of it, some people think Palm Springs is an exotic corner of the world... .

The mountain drops off on both sides of the trail

As the trail started to ease off in steepness, we came across a large pile of rocks at the edge of the trail. I'm so busy getting my workout, complete with heavy perspiration and gasping that I don't know how they find the energy to build these things.

Rocks on the side of the trail

Soon after the rock pile we came to the Shannon Trail plaque, it seems like it's about mid point on the trail. This location has great views and we thought it a good place for a water break. I've been told that the Shannon Trail is dedicated to a teenage horse enthusiast who was killed by an automobile while crossing Palm Canyon while riding her horse.

The Shannon Plaque

We finished our quick break and continued along the trail. While the trail isn't as steep as lower, it still has some great exposure as it winds along the steep hillsides.

The trail along the steep hillside

As we looked down into the canyon below, we could see a faint trail below. We wondered if it was an old Indian trail or a game trail.

Trail visible in the bottom of the canyon

Soon we reached the final stretch of the trail and we could see the high point of the trails in the immediate area.

Looking at the high point on the Berns Trail off to the left

Even the last sections had some great views looking down face of the hill into the Palm Canyon wash below. I would not like to have to try and take a direct route on these steep and loose sections. It would be a recipe for disaster.

Looking down to the wash below

One thing about the steep trails, they tend to spread out the group. I'd like to go slower of course, but then who would take the pictures?

On the final section of the Shannon Trail

I have peak bagging in my blood, so we took a short detour onto the Berns Trail to go to the high point of the area. Dorothy was motivated to be the first on top, she took the lead on this one.

Dorothy next to the pile of rocks at the high point

We took a few "summit" photos and then headed down the Garstin Trail. This trail is steep, but not as steep as the Shannon. Of course they all have great views.

Looking down the Garstin Trail

This trail has a lot of switchbacks and so you get a variety of views. This is one of the things that makes our little playground so special.

Looking down at our car

With downhill hiking, you make good time and it wasn't long before we were back at the trail junction where we started our loop.

The Garstin Trail sign

From this point it's less than 100 yards back to the trail head and our car.

The final section of trail

We had a great workout with fantastic views and all just minutes from home!

The Skyline Trail

Well, yesterday was the big day, a big day in the sense of what I set out to do. 

But first a little history. A good friend of mine likes to run marathons, not my idea of fun, but who am I to judge. Well this friend has been ask

ing me to guide her and some friends up the Skyline Trail in Palm Springs. This is a climb I've done about 4 or 5 times, most recently about 15 or 20 years ago. Now I love the outdoors and hiking,

 but this is one of the most serious hikes in the area. It features eight thousand feet of elevation gain in about eight miles. I had been putting my friend off with the excuse that the snow covering the last 1,000 feet or so of trail would require ice axe, crampons and expedition clothing. None of her group has that kind of gear, so I was spared. Of course guilt finally overcame me and I picked a day earlier in the month. I was "saved" when I ended up having to work, but I had to commit to another date. Well, since I had was going anyway, I invited my son Calvin and any of his friends he wanted to bring, plus some people from work.

I e-mailed my friend last week to remind her about the hike and she called the next morning to tell me her husband had purchased tickets for a play and she would be unable to go. I did some scheming and convinced the coworker and her bo

yfriend to go climbing instead. They took the bait and I was relieved, of course my son was still planning on the hike. Well, my coworker sent me an e-mail the day before the hike telling me she couldn't go since she was being forced to work. Now, with only Calvin going, I decided we should do what he wanted to do and that was to hike the Skyline.

The first time I did this route the trail had fallen into disuse and was difficult to follow. This had been a very popular trail from about the 1930's until the Tram was built in the early 1960's. Since then the trail had become quite overgrown and was no longer even considered a trail but a cross country route by the State Park.

Fast forward to the 1990's and suddenly this trail becomes very popular, especially with runners. One thing about runners is that they are very competitive. They love to compare times. The route for average folks takes about 10 hours, but people I knew were running it under 5 and trying to get their times under 4. The lack of trail maintenance was causing them to lose precious seconds, or even minutes if they got lost. 

Normal hikers were also getting lost, sometimes with fatal results. This created headaches for the state park and local search and rescue teams. Both the authorities and the trail runners decided to fix the problem. The trail runners were hiking the trail with gardening tools and trimming away branches that were encroaching 

on the trail. The authorities decided that RMRU would hike down the from the upper tram and clean up the trail. This effort required heavy equipment, including a chain saw to cut away fallen logs. Between the two groups, the trail is now fairly easy to follow, at least in my opinion.

I wanted to start at the first possible light, but the best laid plans... . We slapped on sun screen and started hiking at the crack of 7 am. I was in shock, I hadn't had any coffee, my pack was too heavy and I had about 4 hours of sleep. Any sensible person would have turned back, so off we went.

We hiked from the Palm Springs Museum (www.psmuseum.org) for 30 minutes and were only passed by one runner, who didn't have pack or water, so we knew he wasn't going to the top. We saw 2 women start up behind us and didn't see them again for 5 hours. We took our first break at the picnic tables and then continued on up.

There were a number of signs warning us that the trail ahead would be difficult and fraught with danger. Some of the interesting facts I learned was that the trail is 8 miles long with no water. That you should beware of danger from heat, snakes, getting lost and there is no water. Of course being sleep deprived I ignored these sensible warnings to turn back and continued on my merry way.

I had forgotten how long the trail goes but at least I was able to find it, along with other people. I have only seen one other group on my previous trips. On this outing I saw a group of two women and a man ahead of us that we caught up to in the middle third of the hike, three mountain bikers who were going up to "flat rock" and then riding back down, three hikers who caught up to us in the middle third, the two women we saw at the start, a man and his son that went almost half way and turned back and a solo hiker who hiked up to "flat rock" and then was going back down.

I tried to "pace" myself by taking picture of some of the flowers. So far this has been a fair year for flowers.

Calvin was excited by all the lizards that we saw and I was excited by another reptile we saw just inches off the trail. I heard a rattle sound, not full on rattling, but enough to make me look. Too bad he kept moving and didn't pose.

During the middle section we passed and were passed by other parties over and over again. 

This continued all the way to "flat rock". We stopped there for lunch, 5 hours since we started. There we met the two women that had started just behind us. They told us that they started up and then had to turn around when they realized they forgot their wallets. Their second start had been at 7:30. While eating the solo hiker showed up, I was amazed he was going to hike back down, he seemed to be in much better shape than me so I guess all the downhill wouldn't be too hard on his legs and knees. Moments later the bikes started showing up and we continued on.

We never saw most of the hikers again, with the exception of the 3 guys that had caught up with us in the middle. They started slowing down more than me and after a while we passed them for the final time and didn't see any again till Long Valley. 

The first part was nice hiking, good weather and great views. The middle part had the best flowers, but was hot and with hazy air quality the views weren't so good. The top part was a grind, by that time I was dragging and it got cold, but all in all I'm glad I did it. What really made the trip was that I was able to do it with Calvin.