Mount San Jacinto State Park in Palm Springs

Mount San Jacinto State Park is a really cool park to visit, even for the casual visitor. I visited this park back in 2012 with my dad. In this throw-back Thursday post, I'm sharing some of our photos from that visit.

One of the cool things about this park is that you can access it from the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. The following is a blurb about the tramway from the state park's website:

Starting in Chino Canyon near Palm Springs, the tram takes passengers from Valley Station at 2,643 feet elevation to Mountain Station on the edge of the wilderness, elevation 8,516 feet. The Mountain Station features a restaurant, gift shop, snack bar, and the state park visitor center.

In Long Valley, a short walk from the station, you will find the Long Valley Ranger Station, a picnic area with barbecue stoves and restrooms, a ski center, a self-guiding nature trail, and Desert View Trail which offers panoramas of the high country including several peaks over 10,000 feet in elevation. You can also enter the hiking trail system from this point. 

This tram ride was really cool to experience, and made the park handicap accessible and also something that would be really cool for kids of all ages. The park can also be accessed by car, and it is actually quite large: it serves as an entry way to the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, and the Pacific Crest Trail runs through it.

I would love to come back to this park one day to explore it more, going beyond the easy Discovery Desert View Trail near the Mountain Station. We don't make it down to southern California very often, so this might be something to save for a future road trip!