In August 1996 I backpacked to the top of Mt. San Gorgonio with friends Sam, Brian, Eric, Meri, Colleen and Della.  Mt. San Gorgonio is the highest peak in Southern California at 11,499'.  It is located in the San Bernardino Mountains roughly northwest of Palm Springs.  The hike was beautiful.  We left the trailhead (elevation 6,900) at about 10:30 Saturday morning and made the summit at about 6:00 PM.  On the way up we saw at DC3 near the trail that had crashed into the mountain years ago.  We also saw several big horn sheep from afar.  

From left to right: Meri, Colleen, Della, Tom, Brian and Sam

We camped on the summit which was extremely windy.  We set up our tents immediately and then got in and did not leave them until 7:00 AM in the morning.  The night was terrible. Not many of us were actually able to fall asleep.  We got up early and starting descending straight away making it back to the trailhead at 1:30 PM Sunday afternoon.  We were a little nervous coming down at one point because we started to see smoke in the distance but we did not see any reports of forest fires in the news that night.

The hike was memorable for a few reasons:

First, the scenery was beautiful.

Second, we had water problems.  I bought a water filter that clogged at our first refilling spot on the way up the mountain.  The filter was not field cleanable and we had no iodine tablets.  We made due with the water we had.  After sleeping the entire night at the summit we left our campsite with only 24 oz of water (for the 5 of us that made the summit) with over ten miles of trail ahead of us (the whole hike was about 21.5 miles).  It was tough. When we got back to our cars we went right to a restaurant and drank and drank and drank.

Our first and last water filtering attempt.  We found out later that there was a clean spring near this lake.

Third, the clarity of the sky at the summit was outstanding.  That was the first time I ever noticed the Milky Way as being 'milky.'  The smog in Los Angeles is typically bad but at 11,499' we were above the smog level.  In fact, the peaks like Mt. San Gorgonio are what help to keep the smog trapped in the Los Angeles basin.  I've hiked up other peaks in the area and remember hiking through the smog ceiling plenty of times.