It’s catch-up time again with the blog. I have a busy couple of weeks ahead, and I once again have several posts that have been sitting in drafts for months that I just never got around to publishing. I’ll probably send out a few this week that are from February trips. This one today is from January…oops. 🙂

I go to professional weather conferences every-so-often, and it’s a great opportunity to watch presentation after presentation on the latest research, technology, and communication ideas for meteorologists. We spend all day in the conference hall at the host hotel, and sometimes there are more evening sessions or events to attend.

It’s such a great way to learn from fellow meteorologists. I always leave with a refreshed sense of motivation and new ideas to keep serving viewers with not only the best forecast, but to do it in a crystal clear and concise manner.

Another plus side of conferences is that you meet so many others in the field. One evening, I saw one of my friends in the lobby talking to a woman I recognized from social media. We follow each other online, so I figured we should be real life friends, too. I walked up and butted in on their conversation. I decided Haley and I had a lot in common, and whether she liked it or not, we’d stay in touch. She only lives a few hours away in the Palm Springs area.

Fast forward a few months, and we made plans to climb outdoors. She had never climbed in a gym before, so she didn’t know what fun she was in for. She “rocked” it, and liked it enough to show up again for the next climbing trip!

Since we share a love for the outdoors, we started planning a hiking weekend, along with our future travel/adventure show :). How fun would that be? Two meteorologists taking on the outdoors, telling stories about the people they meet along the way, and explaining the thing that can either make or break a trip – the weather.

Anyway. I’ve always wanted to visit Palm Springs, so I drove down after work on a Friday, and we started our adventure early on Saturday.

We chose a hike that Haley had been to before, but she hadn’t done the entire trail. I was excited because it was going to be extremely unique: we’d be in a slot canyon, and we’d be climbing up ladders placed at several dry falls. Eventually, you climb up and out of the canyon.

 

Some of the ladders were long, some were short, and some seemed really sketchy. It was unlike any hike I’d ever done!

We met a group on the trail and hiked much of it with them. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The outdoor community is awesome, and it’s one of the friendliest communities I’m a part of. You can strike up a conversation with anyone, hike a little ways with them, then part ways as new friends.

 

We made it out of the canyon and were met with sweeping views of Painted Canyon, Mecca Hills, and beyond. We looped around and headed back down into the canyon. Going down ladders isn’t quite as simple as going up.

Back at the car, we decided to do another nearby and unique trail: Rope Canyon. It was (supposedly) shorter, and required a little more strength to climb the ropes.

It shares a trailhead with Ladder Canyon, but has a quick turnoff early on. We made it up the first rope. A little muscle was required, but it wasn’t bad. It got harder and harder. One spot didn’t even have a rope, but you had to figure out how to get up the 7 foot high wall anyway.

The final rope was intimidating. It had to have been 20 feet high. The wall you use to walk your legs up was sandy and mostly flat, so there were limited slippery foot placements.

I’m pretty adventurous, but this one was a little nerve-wracking.

Haley and I made it up safely, and were mostly out of the canyon.

This seemed to be the end of the trail, but a wash kept going. We decided to see where it went, as I was not exactly looking forward to climbing back down that last rope. Haley had read that the rope and ladder trails do intertwine, so we knew we could find our way back eventually.

We walked and walked, and kept questioning if the wash would ever linked up with the ladder trail we’d been on earlier.

We were eventually spit out in a dead end. We’d gone a couple of miles past the last rope, and knew it would be an annoying hike back. One side wasn’t as steep, and footprints showed us that others had gone up that way before. After a little scrambling, we emerged from the canyon, and ended up at the top of the ladders!

We hiked down for the second time that day, relieved to have been on the trail the whole time.

There was a third hike we had in mind, but after 8 or 9 miles, we decided to save it for the next visit.

We took a drive down near the Salton Sea. I’d read about it a few years ago, and was really intrigued.

One of the big tourist attractions in the area is Salvation Mountain. It was packed with tourists and “Instagram models.” 🙂 It’s such a neat concept. It sits at the entrance to Slab City, which is such a fascinating area to me. It’s essentially off the grid. I highly recommend typing these places into Google, and also watching a few YouTube videos on them. Like I said, it’s very interesting. I’d tell you more here, but this would turn into a book instead of a blog post.

 

We drove to Bombay Beach to catch the sunset over the Salton Sea. This is another area with an interesting history. Despite everything I heard about the Salton Sea’s nastiness, I actually enjoyed being there. I didn’t smell anything funky, and it was a phenomenal sunset. Maybe we got lucky.

 

We spent Saturday night how any young professionals would – wearing sweatpants, eating ice cream, and watching a terrible movie. We stopped the movie several times to fact check – we were THAT suspicious of the movie’s credibility. We fell asleep that night knowing a lot more about sharks.

We had one more hike planned for Sunday morning. The Lykken Trail is very close to Palm Springs, and had fantastic views of the Coachella Valley and Little San Bernardino Mountains. We “Lykked” it a lot.

The final stop before I left town was lunch at Trio. Haley had raved about their veggie burger, and it definitely lived up to the hype. Let’s just say I have a new-found love for goat cheese.

What a great weekend! It’s hard to believe we fit 3 uniquely different hikes into a day and a half. More climbs and hikes are in our future in Southern California, and it’s also time we get Haley up here to Yosemite. We’ll keep planning that TV show, so watch for us on the Travel Channel.