For this weeks Show Us Your California contest by Hive account@thesocalhive I go for a fun ride up...

The Palm Springs Tram!!

A few days after getting back from visiting family in Arizona with my cousin, my Dad and his wife made the opposite trip and came out here to SoCal from Arizona to visit his wife's sister and her family. On one of the days they were out visiting they invited me to join them for a ride up the famous Palm Springs aerial tramway! The tram starts down in the hot dry desert of Palm Springs and climbs 5,873' up the rugged Chino canyon, transporting you to the beautiful alpine mountain scenery of the San Jacinto wilderness.

So in the morning I drove out to Palm Springs and met my Dad, his wife, and her family at the Valley Station at the base of the tram. I was a bit worried because I was running late, but luckily so were they and so we both arrived around the same time. We got our tickets in the Valley Station and to our surprise we didn't have to wait long. After only about 5-10 minutes they were ready to start loading our tram car. The cars are quite large and can hold a maximum of 80 people, luckily in our car I'd guess there was probably only 40-50 so it wasn't too crowded. The ride up was pretty exciting and the views got better and better as we climbed. Looking at all the steep rocky scenery going up Chino canyon it is really quite incredible that they were able to build the tram there. Also the ride was actually pretty quick and before we knew it we had arrived at the 8516' Mountain Station. We unloaded the car and went out onto the back patio for some views and it was a totally different world from where we started. Dry hot cactus filled desert was replaced with cool temps, meadows, pine trees, streams, and mountain peaks.

Views from the Valley Station

Riding up the tram

The rugged cliffs of Chino canyon

Getting up higher

Getting close to the top

Views from the back patio of the Mountain Station

More views from the back patio

A few of us decided to go out for a little hike. We headed down the path into the lush forest of Long Valley. We took the Desert view trail up to a lookout spot where we got some nice views looking out over the desert and had some fun climbing around on some of the rock formations there. Then we hiked the Nature loop trail which took us along a nice little stream and around a beautiful green meadow looping us back by the Ranger Station and then back to the path that climbed up to the Mountain Station where we re-met with the rest of the group.

Trail sign in Long Valley

Hiking through the valley

The stream and the meadow

Another view of the stream and the meadow

Hiking through big Jeffery pines

Desert view, quite the juxtaposition

Another shot from Desert View

Back down by the creek

The bridge where we crossed the creek

Trail junction sign

Another beautiful little meadow

The ranger station

Long Valley Picnic area

Climbing back up to the Mountain Station

After that we headed inside and checked out all the interesting exhibits inside the Mountain Station which included two small movie theaters where you could watch videos about the tram and the San Jacinto wilderness. After that we headed out onto the front patio for some more views and even made the climb up the several staircases to the V.W. Grubbs view point which really had the best views. After that a few people in the group did a little souvenier shopping and then it was time for us to load up on another tram car and take the ride back down to the Valley Station. Back to the hot desert. It was a lot of fun and it was nice to get to spend time with the family, but as an avid hiker I would've liked to do even more hiking. So I think I'm gonna have to go back sometime soon and maybe do a 2-3 day backpacking trip. It's really nice up there and I think that it would be a lot of fun.