Seven Pines Trail, Mt. San Jacinto

On October 6, I made my maiden voyage up the Seven Pines Trail.  Though I've taken at least four other routes to San Jacinto Peak, I'd never gone this way.  Unusually, I found the bottom of the hike (the Seven Pines Trail stretch before the Deer Springs Trail intersection) to be the most scenic.

It took Patrick Moran and I about 9.5 hours at a conversational pace to complete the roughly 14-mile round trip.  With the two notable dips on the Seven Pines Trail (to cross the North Fork of the San Jacinto River), it's about 5000 vertical feet.  I left south Orange County at 4:30AM and was back unloading the car at 7:00PM. 

It's worth mentioning that the Seven Pines Trail is hard to follow in places. We found ourselves temporarily off-trail on several occasions and had to make an effort to re-find the trail at the first saddle.  It's also worth mentioning that the river was running, which surprised me considering how dry it has been.

San Gorgonio

View from the summit of San Jacinto Peak. Snow Creek is down to the left, Kristen Peak is in center, and Leatherneck Ridge is on the right. 

Patrick on top

This photo was taken moments before the landslide ... just kidding.

 Heading down

Beautiful scenery on the Seven Pines Trail

A lovely hike