Together with one of our sons and his wife, we have purchased a house in the Palm Desert area. We put up the money, they are putting up massive amounts of sweat equity – to turn the place into an Airbnb. They have had a lot of success in Big Bear and want to expand. More on that venture in another post.
So we went there this past weekend, to see the progress, to help with work and to get the boys out of the way so they can work.
It is really hot there, it was only 106 degrees when we were there, it is more like 116 today. Perfect to spend the money and go up the tramway, 6000 feet up to Idylwild where it is much cooler.
We were greeted by this mountain goat at the Tramway station. How perfect is that! A mountain goat in Hebrew is Eyal, just like my grandson, although he wasn’t with us.
The tramway is a funicular, the engines at the bottom pull down one car and that in turn causes the other car to go up. 2.5 miles is the distance, which is pretty long for any funicular. As we went up, at about the halfway point, we saw the other car coming down.
The cars are circular and the floor rotates, so we made two full circles on our journey. Which is why some windows were open, others weren’t. I took this picture of rocks through the glass. The rock formations are amazing.
We went over five of these towers and the car swayed every time. Especially between the longest stretch of cable. We saw a guy come down on top of one of the cars, they are constantly doing maintenance work. You will notice clouds, clouds mean humidity, so the desert wasn’t really dry heat, it was humid, There were flash rainstorms and floods the day before, and even a little rain down in the desert.
Here is a good loo at the car. There are no seats, you stand, and are reminded to always move your hands to the left if you are holding the railing, because, the floor rotates.
Looking down at Palm Springs as we rise higher.
The bottom station is at about 2000 ft. So, 2.5 miles and over 6000 ft of elevation gain. It was considerably cooler up here. It started at 60 degrees and was in the high 60s as we headed down. A completely different climate.
Family pictures.
I was a little cold! We walked around a lot, so I warmed up.
More interesting rock formations, this time among pine and redwood trees. That is a water tower up at the top. There is a road that comes here, not everything was brought up by tram, but it is a long drive from the desert floor.
Some conservation guys breaking up rocks, really, with those large mallets they were breaking rocks. It looked like they were building some kind of rock structure.
Many trees fall onto other trees.
Others fell across the path, and they had to remove a large section, which we walked through.
Back on the bottom, a water fall, its not called Palm Springs for nothing. There is plenty of fresh water.
The old tram cars, nope, not circular, not rotating.
This is a little hard to see, I only got the picture from the car, to the back of the sign. The sign is right next to the beautiful Midcentury Visitor center. It is a play on Hollywoodland. It says Indian Land, but with the same curve the letters have in Hollywood. I’m fine with this, but it is cultural appropriation. The Indians appropriating from white developers. Why is cultural appropriation a one way street? When white people enjoy something from another future – they are stealing, but it doesn’t work the other way? I miss the days when we were simply enjoying each others culture. Anyway, by the time we got down it was 100 degrees and there was no way we were stopping to see this from the front.
Leah