San Gorgonio
On Ascending the Tallest Mountain in Southern California With Your Parents
When I was nine, on summer vacation, my dad announced we were going to take a family hike. He said it would be fun. My dad wanted to hike along San Gorgonio Mountain – we had never been. The mountain is in San Bernardino County – it’s still there. So my parents and I got up early on a Saturday, we packed light, and drove to San Gorgonio.
We started our casual hike at around eight o’clock in the morning. After about an hour, my mom got tired and wanted to head back. My dad said, “Why don’t we just rest for a few minutes and then go a little bit farther?” A while later, my mom is tired – wants to turn around. My dad says, “Why don’t we just rest for a few minutes and go a little bit farther?” He kept saying this until we ended up at the top of San Gorgonio – just as the sun was going down.
San Gorgonio is the tallest mountain in Southern California. It’s 11,503 feet. I don’t know how we did it, but somehow we reached the summit – just as the sun was going down. Not the ideal location to be on Earth if you weren’t planning to stay there, which we weren’t. We only stayed up there for a few seconds. My dad praised us, saying, “Good job, guys. All right, let’s head down.” We had about ten minutes to get back to the car before night fell. We didn’t make it. At around I’m going to guess 11,400 feet we were in complete darkness. At this point we had run out of food and water, no flashlight, and we were dressed in shorts and t-shirts. We looked like a family who had escaped a Sears catalog.
Even though my dad said the hike was going to be fun, I wasn’t enjoying myself and neither was my mom. On the way down, we were blindly putting one foot in front of the other. It didn’t take long for us to figure out we were lost because we had no idea where we were. Another big clue was the fact that the trail suddenly became way too narrow, like an animal trail. We stayed on it because it was the only trail we had. Plus, it was heading downward. We were afraid if we turned around we might accidentally end up at the top of the mountain again. So we marched forward with our fingers crossed.
My dad got really thirsty. When he heard a creek with running water, he left the trail and headed towards it. Something jumped out at him, snapped a branch. My mom asked, “What was that?” And my dad said, “Just a deer.” My mom heard, “Just a bear.” She screamed and started running for her life. My dad is a pretty brave guy, but he’s not so brave that if he encountered a bear, he would say, “Just a bear.” I don’t know what made my mom think she could outrun a bear.
A few hours after the imaginary bear attack, the trail came to an end, but it didn’t end at the parking lot. There was nothing but forest. But. There was also a pitched tent. The three of us stood there, shouting, “Hello? Anybody home? Ding dong.” Someone unzipped the tent and we were worried that a dude wearing a hockey mask was going to come out. But it was this disheveled woman in her forties, and she looked scared too. My dad introduced us all. He said, “Nice to meet you. Sorry to be a bother. We’re lost. Can you tell us how to get on a trail that leads to the parking lot?”
She told us – but it was kind of confusing. She was saying stuff like, “When you get to the hollow tree stump go north, then turn left at the rock quarry.” We were asking her questions to clarify and she started screaming at us. “I don’t care where you go – just get out of here – you’re scaring my kids!” Apparently as a nine-year-old boy I looked very threatening – and my mom, she was about my size, so that must have been terrifying.
We left the lady alone, we went back where we came from and eventually found a wider trail so we took it. But we were tired. We decided to lie on the ground until the sun came up and then we could figure out where to go. I was nestled in between my parents – I was very comfortable. I felt secure because I knew if a predator attacked it would get them first.
These strange looking birds started swooping down at us. My mother wondered what they were and my dad made the mistake of pointing out they were bats. As soon as my mom heard that, she was on her feet, she was down the trail – she became an instant track star. She didn’t know where she was going except that it was away from the vampires. That’s all she knew. We caught up to her and kept going. The sun was just starting to come up and things began looking familiar.
We made it back to the car at around eight o’clock in the morning – twenty-four hours after we started. It was literally a day hike. My dad suggested we find the nearest hotel and get a room. My mom threw down the hammer. She commanded, “Give me the car keys – I’m sleeping in my own bed.” She drove us back home like a Nascar driver. We slept for the next three days. My parents are still together. Friends have asked me over the years if I’d be interested in going for a hike on San Gorgonio. My answer has always been the same. “Been there, done that.”