High Point - Palomar Mountain
Six Pack of Peaks: High Point (Palomar Mountain
4/10/22
Out & Back
Miles Hiked: 13.8 miles
Elevation gain: 3,509 ft
Total elevation: 6,140 ft
Pairs well with: Garage 79
Elevation map from Alltrails.com
Scramble [classification]: A grading system for how technical a slope will be. Ranging from a slight sweat to a raging slip ‘n’ slide with your life flashing before your eyes.
Another double peak weekend, but due to poor permit planning on yours truly we ended up doing High Point on Palomar first. Ideally, we would not be starting a double digit distance after 8am, but unideal is how we usually roll.
This mountain was tough, physically and mentally. It introduces itself with two miles of a steep climb on loose rock and scree. Spoiler alert, that’s how you end the hike too except you’re sliding down it trying not to slip off to your death. It was crazy hot and the sun relentless. We were having traumatic flashbacks from climbing Mt. Wilson. Jake muttered “persistent bastard” under his breath more than once. At the summit, we took a short rest to regain some hit die prior to starting the long descent.
With two miles of the jagged rock, scree descent from hell, we saw that we had just over an hour to get to the only beer served on tap within a twenty mile radius. We needed to fly and fly, we did. Jake took off with the car keys to make it to the atm while I tried to convince a tired trail doggo that shade was an unnecessary mind trick. I was not very convincing so he got a free ride while I tried to not kill the both of us skiing down the sheer mountainside on loose rocks. He miraculously gained his energy back when he jumped from my arms at the end of the scree to bark at a neighborhood dog, hmm.
This day hurt. The legs hurt from the distance. The feet hurt from the jagged, loose rocks. The arms hurt from carrying a deceiving trail doggo the last two miles. But beer soothes the aches and the soul. Fingers crossed we would still have it in us to complete the second peak of the weekend tomorrow.
More Pack of Peak posts
Our tramily packed up the Yellow Submarine for some camping and hiking fun at altitude. Our goal: summit our first Colorado 14er, Mount Sherman.