While descending Indianhead last week, I remember looking at the long, steep ridge leading up to San Ysidro Mountain directly across from us and commenting on how miserable that hike must be. “I wonder what peak that is?”, I thought. I didn’t realize at the time that it was San Ysidro Mountain, and that it was on my list to climb the following week.
The next week, I found myself in Palm Springs for a week-long corporate meeting. When it ended on Thursday, I made the short drive to Borrego Springs, where I stayed the night at a local hotel so I could get an early start on the hike. I had psyched myself up all week about how hard this hike was going to be, but it wasn’t. Gaining 4,500 feet in 4.5 miles is never an easy hike, but I was not fatigued like I was on Indianhead.
It was a lot of fun and great solitude. There was a lot of scrambling and route-finding around big obstacles, and I found my knees were in a lot of pain by the time I reached my car. This was unusual for me. In fact, the pain lasted most of the week to the point where I canceled some workouts to recover. I tried some mobilizations that I got from Squat University, and these gave me some noticeable improvement. My knees recovered just in time for the Villager Peak hike I had planned with Wes the next week. The adventure continues.
Elevation Profile
