Deer Spring Trail to Suicide Rock

location: Deer Spring Trail to Suicide Rock in the San Jacinto State/Federal Wilderness
distance: 8.5 miles
elevation gain: 2,000 feet

details: we're wrapping up our time in California and decided to head back towards Idllywild for our last hiking opportunity. a friend lent us a book of hikes in the area and we settled on one in the San Jacinto Wilderness a bit beyond Black Mountain.

one quirk of the hike is that it traverses both state and federal portions of the San Jacinto Wilderness; the state portion requires you to self-register at the ranger station in Idyllwild before leaving on the hike (safety or usage reasons, maybe?). that gave us an excuse to leave a little bit later in the day than some of our other hikes - and the projected lower temperatures of late September. it also meant we passed the trailhead and knew where to find it readily after self-registering.

compared to some of our recent excursions, the trail up to Suicide Rock proved relatively easy - moderate elevation gain and a shorter distance. we had pleasant breezes and good temperatures all the way up, and it didn't begin to climb until we'd nearly completed our trek. additionally, despite reports on the popularity of this hike we saw relatively few people on our ascent and had the place to ourselves when we got to the top. seems we missed the dedicated early morning hikers (who probably headed to the San Jacinto summit anyway) as well as the casual walkers - of whom we saw plenty while coming down (and most of whom didn't seem to be porting much, let alone enough, water for a good hike).

Suicide Rock is a granite outcrop overlooking Idllwild and across Strawberry Valley from Tahquitz Peak. while probably untrue, legend claims a Native American princess and her paramour jumped to their deaths from the outcrop, rather than endure separation (most think this legend stems from using the story set out in Ramona, written in the 1880s about a mixed race Native American-Scots girl, in order to boost tourism to the area).  if possible, the views from Suicide Rock impressed me more than the views from Black Mountain; no San Gorgonio, sure, but Tahquitz did its best to make up for it. we took our time enjoying the views and refueling before heading back to the car - and feeling more invigorated and refreshed than wrung out and tapped out!