Howard,
My recollections of San Jacinto are much like yours. It is an awesome mountain. So is Mount San Gorgonio, not that far away in the San Bernardino Mountains. San Gorgonio is 11,499 feet in altitude. From its lofty summit one has commanding views of the Mojave Desert and dubious views of Los Angeles. I'll stop here before my bias against those giant areas of human congestion, pollution, and environmental destruction become the motivation for an unwelcome rant that serves no purpose, but to allow me to let off steam. Big trees go with big mountains and San Jacinto and San Gorgonio have both. As WNTS grows, the San Bernardinos would be an excellent location for a rendezvous. Thanks for reminding me of this magical place, so close to Los Angeles and Hollywood hoopla, yet so far away. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "thomas howard" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2009 9:26:37 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] San Jacinto Mountain ENTS, Speaking of big Western mountains and San Jacinto Mountain in particular, I have good memories of that awesome mountain. Back in 1971, San Jacinto was the first Western mountain I visited. When I first saw it from the west (near Hemet) I couldn’t believe what I saw, a mountain twice as high as anything I’ve seen in the East; it looked like a gigantic ocean wave thrown up to the top of the sky. Adirondack sized mountains nearby looked like mere hills. High up on San Jacinto was (and is) a vast old growth forest of about 35,000 acres. That especially seemed hard to believe as we climbed 5000’ up the barren lower slopes. Ponderosa (and almost certainly Coulter) Pines suddenly appeared in the rocky landscape at 5000’, the lowest level of the great old growth forest. This old growth forest contained the largest trees I’d seen up to that time – along a trail at 8000’ east of where we camped at the Willow Creek crossing in the San Jacinto Wilderness were several immense Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pines, and White Firs; the largest tree was a rugged battered old White Fir that seemed to be at least 10’ dbh and 175’ tall – it’s still the largest Fir I’ve ever seen in North America. Another area of great trees was at Round Valley (I believe that’s the place) at 8400’ just below the Mountain Station of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, with huge Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pines easily 4’-6’+ dbh. In the village of Idyllwild, the loveliest mountain town I’ve ever seen with houses set among towering pines, I saw huge Incense Cedars with big U-shaped arching limbs. On a later trip (1974) I took the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway and from there hiked to San Jacinto’s 10,800’ summit, still the highest point I’ve ever been to. Trees up there were a lot smaller, mostly Lodgepole Pines, due to harsh conditions. It was incredible to look down on the desert 2 miles below; the city of Palm Springs is only 500’ above sea level. On that day it was 114 degrees F in Palm Springs but 72 degrees at the Tramway Mountain Station at 8500’, and even cooler at the summit – it had been 35 degrees that morning at Mountain Station, coldest temperature in USA that day. San Jacinto would be a great place for ENTS/WNTS to get accurate tree height, girth, and age measurements. Tom Howard 7/18/2009 Windows Live™ SkyDrive™: Store, access, and share your photos. See how. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
