Mt. San Jacinto State Park stays open, 70 others closed

Mt. San Jacinto St Park is not among the 70 state parks to closed over the next 14 month. John Laird, Secretary of the California Department of Natural Resources and Ruth Coleman, Director of California State Parks, announced today Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget reductions proposals which the legislature approved in March will require the agency to close the 70 parks by July 1, 2010.

Use, revenues, significance and ability to ensure no access were all criteria used to determine which of the state’s parks would be closed.

Both laird and Coleman were adamant that this decision was solely based on the March budget decisions. Whatever the governor proposes Monday in his may revised budget will be an additional decision with which they must grapple.

Coleman did say the agency would try to honor all existing reservations at these areas. If a park or campground were closed, State Parks will try to find a comparable and nearby site.

List of 70 park closures:

Anderson Marsh SHP

Annadel SP

Antelope Valley Indian Museum

Austin Creek SRA

Bale Grist Mill SHP

Benbow Lake SRA

Benicia Capitol SHP

Benicia SRA

Bidwell Mansion SHP

Bothe-Napa Valley SP

Brannan Island SRA

California Mining & Mineral Museum

Candlestick Point SRA

Castle Crags SP

Castle Rock SP

China Camp SP

Colusa-Sacramento River SRA

Del Norte Coast Redwoods SP

Fort Humboldt SHP

Fort Tejon SHP

Garrapata SP

George J. Hatfield SRA

Governor's Mansion SHP

Gray Whale Cove SB

Greenwood SB

Grizzly Creek Redwoods SP

Hendy Woods SP

Henry W. Coe SP

Jack London SHP

Jug Handle SNR

Leland Stanford Mansion SHP

Limekiln SP

Los Encinos SHP

Malakoff Diggins SHP

Manchester SP

McConnell SRA

McGrath SB

Mono Lake Tufa SNR

Morro Strand SB

Moss Landing SB

Olompali SHP

Palomar Mountain SP

Petaluma Adobe SHP

Picacho SRA

Pio Pico SHP

Plumas-Eureka SP

Point Cabrillo Light Station

Portola Redwoods SP

Providence Mountains SRA

Railtown 1897 SHP

Russian Gulch SP

Saddleback Butte SP

Salton Sea SRA

Samuel P. Taylor SP

San Pasqual Battlefield SHP

Santa Cruz Mission SHP

Santa Susana Pass SHP

Shasta SHP

South Yuba River SP

Standish-Hickey SRA

Sugarloaf Ridge SP

Tomales Bay SP

Tule Elk SNR

Turlock Lake SRA

Twin Lakes SB

Weaverville Joss House SHP

Westport-Union Landing SB

William B. Ide Adobe SHP

Woodson Bridge SRA

Zmudowski SB

How the lost hiker got to the desert tram station

Richard Wong, 23, of Valencia and a college student in San Francisco, confounded Riverside County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) searchers and all probabilities by turning exhaustion into a prodigious physical feat.

On Monday, May 31, Wong began hiking with several friends from Humber Park to what searchers believed was Tahquitz Peak. Around noon, short of the Saddle, Wong told his friends he was not feeling well, was experiencing extreme exhaustion and was going to head back to Humber. He never arrived.

At 3:30 a.m. Tuesday June 1, RCSD mobilized Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit, who, along with Desert Search and Rescue and an RCSD helicopter unit, combed the area from the top of the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to Humber and Tahquitz. Late Tuesday, at around 6:00 p.m., 32 hours after beginning his hike, Wong was sited by desert station Tram personnel in a canyon, under Tram towers, directly above the station. Officials hiked up and escorted him down.

How does a man who is too exhausted to go on after less than two hours on a trail, find the stamina and sure footedness to safely navigate his way to the peak. and then down the treacherous north face of Mt. San Jacinto, a descent that has beckoned to and broken other hikers?

“Tuesday was my mother’s birthday,” said Wong by telephone, “and I wanted to make sure not to worry her.” Wong then recounted his odyssey.

After his friends went on, Wong rested, then, feeling better, decided to start after them, but not to Tahquitz, as searchers initially believed, but to the peak of Mt. San Jacinto. And although Wong encountered other hikers and even a park ranger, neither search team nor RCSD’s helicopter ran into him because they weren’t searching where he was heading.

Wong said he got to the summit about sundown, and because it was still snowy there, realized he needed to hike out of the snow. “I thought I’d hike back to Humber, but the dark and the thickness of the trees convinced me I needed to stop for the night,” he said. Wong had on a t-shirt, basketball shorts and tennis shoes. “I also had a jacket and that pretty much saved me,” he said.

The next morning, at sunrise, Wong saw that he was still on the ridgeline and that the cables of the Tram were off to his right. He decided to follow the cables down to the desert station. “Ten decently sized hills turned out to be 80 or 90 with vertical drop offs,” re remembered. “I followed a little creek, with snow runoff, down the mountain. It looked shorter and a lot easier on a map.”

Wong said it took him 10 hours to get down the precipitous north face. “It was a bad guess and a bad gamble,” he acknowledged.

Many hikers lost and desperate hikers have looked from the ridgeline to the lights and civilization of Palm Springs below and decided to make the descent. Wong is one of the lucky few that made it on his own.