A nice feature of the hotel was a 24hour outdoor salt water pool. There was a spa too, yet not salt water. A warm swim in the pool before bed helps you sleep like a baby.
The hotel provided some breakfast items, but nothing substantial enough to fuel us for our anticipated hike in the snow above Palm Springs in the Mount San Jacinto State Park on Saturday, so we headed over to Cheeky's next door.
There was about a 20 minute wait for a table, so we took a walk up the street and took some pictures of the interesting art installations.
Cheeky's is very popular, and it's easy to see why. Tap water comes in a pretty bottle and maple syrup is served in a little metal container shaped like a log cabin.
The menu was filled with familiar breakfast items, each one with an interesting twist. I tried the bacon's flight which consisted of 5 different flavors of bacon and two eggs. Sean had the egg sandwich, and we both shared a blueberry corn pancake. Doesn't it all look great?!
I'm not sure what time we actually ended up on the road to the tram, but it certainly wasn't "early". No worries though, we were excited to be on our way.
It was interesting to see the reaction of so many tourists riding on the shuttle between the parking lot and the tram when the driver announced 32 degree temperatures and several feet of snow awaiting us at the station at the top. Most people were dressed in shorts and t-shirts, perfect for the desert below.
The first part of the ride looks much like hot rocky desert....
but that quickly gives way to glistening white snow around big pine trees with dusty hot Palm Springs way down below.
The tram rotates as it travels up and down the mountain. If you haven't taking a ride up to the top, we highly recommend it. We got a little discount from our hotel, but you can usually get the same discount with AAA. You can order tickets online, but I think you can only get the discount when purchasing tickets at the station. Getting out discount through the hotel saved us the time of waiting in line at the station. You'll find lots of Palm Springs hotels offering tram packages.
While there was lots of snow, it was pretty icy. I'd never walked on snow for more than a minute before and it took some getting used to. Luckily I had poles to keep me from slipping around. I was a little afraid, but as you can see, Sean was so excited!
Wait for me!
We never did find the ski hut to rent snow shoes, but we were somewhat fine without them. We didn't hike to the peak because we didn't have enough daylight, but we did make it around the nature trail and the desert view trail. A nice jumble of rocks overlooking the valley below made a great lunch stop.
This little guy couldn't wait for us to leave some crumbs behind.
After lunch, we started to climb up a hill to find a geocache, but I chickened out. Every so often I'd either slip and slide out of control, or sink down several feet which I think is called post-holing. I opted to take a nap at the bottom of the hill until Sean got back to show me how to make a snow angel:
We were there for several hours, but we didn't really travel all that far in comparison to our regular hikes back home in Santa Barbara. The cold and elevation wiped us out but the views were totally worth it.
On the way back down, I snapped a shot of the other other tram car on it's way up. If you look closely, you can see a guy taking photos of us as we're trying to do the same thing.
Back down in Palm Springs, the temperatures were mild and the moon was just coming up.
We could also see lots of windmills on the way down too.
Back down from the mountain, we walked around downtown Palm Springs, had a bite to eat at a Thai restaurant and then headed back for our last night at the Pepper Tree Inn. Perhaps the elevation from the hike earlier that day zapped both of us because we were dead asleep within minutes.
It was hard to leave our little desert paradise the next morning. We would have arranged the trip the other way around with the Pepper Tree Inn stay after the camping portion of our trip, but the forecast predicted high winds in Anza-Borrego for Friday and Saturday. Desert wildflower viewing and wind don't mix, so we decided to wait it out in Palm Springs.
The menu was filled with familiar breakfast items, each one with an interesting twist. I tried the bacon's flight which consisted of 5 different flavors of bacon and two eggs. Sean had the egg sandwich, and we both shared a blueberry corn pancake. Doesn't it all look great?!
I'm not sure what time we actually ended up on the road to the tram, but it certainly wasn't "early". No worries though, we were excited to be on our way.
It was interesting to see the reaction of so many tourists riding on the shuttle between the parking lot and the tram when the driver announced 32 degree temperatures and several feet of snow awaiting us at the station at the top. Most people were dressed in shorts and t-shirts, perfect for the desert below.The first part of the ride looks much like hot rocky desert....
but that quickly gives way to glistening white snow around big pine trees with dusty hot Palm Springs way down below.
The tram rotates as it travels up and down the mountain. If you haven't taking a ride up to the top, we highly recommend it. We got a little discount from our hotel, but you can usually get the same discount with AAA. You can order tickets online, but I think you can only get the discount when purchasing tickets at the station. Getting out discount through the hotel saved us the time of waiting in line at the station. You'll find lots of Palm Springs hotels offering tram packages. While there was lots of snow, it was pretty icy. I'd never walked on snow for more than a minute before and it took some getting used to. Luckily I had poles to keep me from slipping around. I was a little afraid, but as you can see, Sean was so excited!
Wait for me!
We never did find the ski hut to rent snow shoes, but we were somewhat fine without them. We didn't hike to the peak because we didn't have enough daylight, but we did make it around the nature trail and the desert view trail. A nice jumble of rocks overlooking the valley below made a great lunch stop.
This little guy couldn't wait for us to leave some crumbs behind.
After lunch, we started to climb up a hill to find a geocache, but I chickened out. Every so often I'd either slip and slide out of control, or sink down several feet which I think is called post-holing. I opted to take a nap at the bottom of the hill until Sean got back to show me how to make a snow angel:
We were there for several hours, but we didn't really travel all that far in comparison to our regular hikes back home in Santa Barbara. The cold and elevation wiped us out but the views were totally worth it.
On the way back down, I snapped a shot of the other other tram car on it's way up. If you look closely, you can see a guy taking photos of us as we're trying to do the same thing.
Back down in Palm Springs, the temperatures were mild and the moon was just coming up.
We could also see lots of windmills on the way down too.
Back down from the mountain, we walked around downtown Palm Springs, had a bite to eat at a Thai restaurant and then headed back for our last night at the Pepper Tree Inn. Perhaps the elevation from the hike earlier that day zapped both of us because we were dead asleep within minutes.It was hard to leave our little desert paradise the next morning. We would have arranged the trip the other way around with the Pepper Tree Inn stay after the camping portion of our trip, but the forecast predicted high winds in Anza-Borrego for Friday and Saturday. Desert wildflower viewing and wind don't mix, so we decided to wait it out in Palm Springs.
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