Coachella Valley Hiking Club Blog

Last Sunday December 12 I (Eric) led a small group up the Sawmill Trail. I had always thought that the trail was 8 or 9 miles round trip but a GPS reading and by studying the map we decided that it is about 11 miles and 2200 foot elevation gain. The trail is an old logging road that goes up toward Santa Rosa Mountain in a series of switchbacks. There is a spring at the top and and old lumber kiln and if you go farther, there is some old logging equipment. When we got within a mile of the top, we encountered snow. It was cold but beautiful.

   

On Saturday, December 9th, a group of us went to Sheep Hole Oasis with Jeff Morgan and some people from the BLM. We dug into the spring until we found some moisture. It took a while because we had to take our shovel fulls to an archaologist who was screening the dirt. We found a railroadspike, a small piece of PVC pipe, an old coroded 22 shell, and a tea bag. We are going back in a few weeks to see if we had any success.