Palms to Pines & Rare Desert Storm~

Jul29

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway has the world’s largest rotating tram cars.

The two and a half mile trip up the mountain from the desert floor takes ten minutes.

It brings you from a desert floor elevation of 479 feet to 8, 516 feet. That’s a big climb in ten minutes!

The ride up moves through five different life zones, from the Sonoran Desert floor to the Arctic/Alpine Zone, where the highest peak, Mt. San Jacinto, is 10, 834 feet.

You leave the stark, baking desert, and hike in the mountains where the temperatures are 30 degrees cooler than below.

During our trip, a summer storm was moving in, causing it to rain on the mountain, and dropping the temperatures even more.

By the time we returned to the desert, we could watch the rain clouds move in over the mountains accompanied by lots of thunder. This is a rare summer occurrence and one I have never seen before. Despite the rain, the temperature remained a steady 112 degrees fahrenheit, and the drops evaporated quickly after contact with the superheated desert.

After the passage of the brief storm, the light was lovely.

Cheers to you from the scorching, but beautiful, summer desert~

185 thoughts on “Palms to Pines & Rare Desert Storm~”

  2. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sun and the light and warmth, etc…. but my favorite picture is the rain. I love the grey, the darker colors that bring out so much around us we don’t necessarily see in the light. Love the dessert too!

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  9. We visit friends in Palm Springs occasionally, but I’ve never taken the tram up the mountain. Thanks for the encouragement. (I’m slowing down; don’t write much, but I do like to follow along. Your posts extend my world, keep me dreaming of adventures.)

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  14. I’ve been on that Tram once back in the late 80’s when He-Man and I got a romantic get-away. The views are amazing. How wonderful for you to be able to get up there to cooler air!

    What’s funny is my son called home yesterday afternoon to chat and asked, ” how are you doing in the heat?” I replied I was doing great. It wasn’t bothering me at all as I do much better with the heat than cold. I hope it’s not really bothering you too much either.

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  15. Fascinating and interesting. One would go from sweating the extreme heat to sudden chills in the climbing altitude and temperature drop and wonder what kind of clothes to wear for the occasion. 🙂

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  17. I hope you enjoyed it wish it had brought relief we have been 95-100 but had hail 2 days ago and this morning in the high 40’s in NH but will be in the 80’s all week with many chances of rain just praying storms behave 🙂

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  22. Beautiful, Cindy! I’ve never been to this part of the country, but definitely hope to in the next year or two! We are headed to Big Sur Dec 2 for 3 months, and I am looking forward to exploring N CA.

    Also I hope you are safe from the fires!

    Cheers,
    Lynne

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