Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

     This Friday two events took place. First, it was my brother's birthday. Happy birthday shout-out to Jack! And second, we went on a field trip to Palm Springs to ride the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. It was really fun, and I thought I'd share a few pictures with you, as well as some of the Tramway's history.

     The man responsible for the construction of a tramway was Francis Crocker. He was a young electrical engineer when he first thought to build a tramway up to Mount San Jacinto in 1935. It was soon dubbed "Crocker's Folly" by a newspaper, but O. Earl Coffman, co-manager of Palm Springs Desert Inn, helped Crocker's dream turn into a plan.

     When World War II started, plans were postponed. But in 1945 a new tram bill was passed, and by 1950 technicians were moving ahead on designs for the tramway. Funds for construction were raised by selling $8.15 million in private revenue bonds. No public funds were used.

A view of one of the towers from the tramcar.

     The Korean War posed another delay, but the project began to take form in July 1961. Helicopters were used to erect four out of five of the towers. They flew some 23,000 missions hauling men and materials needed to build the towers and the Mountain Station.

The view toward the Mountain Station.

     The inaugural ride of the Tramway took place on September 12, 1963. Francis Crocker and O. Earl Coffman were both present, as well as various local and state dignitaries. In September 2000, the Tramway got an upgrade. Passengers now rode in the world's largest rotating tramcars.

One of the first tramcars used. These did not rotate.

     Since 1963 almost 18 million people have ridden the Tramway up the chino Canyon to the San Jacinto State Park. From the Mountain Station, you can look out over the San Jacinto Mountain Range or take a number of small hiking trails.

     Below are some more photos. They start from at the top, where our family and some friends took a short hiking loop. It was really pretty and not too hot.

On the trip down, I took a lot of pictures. You can see really cool mountain formations, and the city of Palm Springs from the tramcar.

Palm Springs... It would be cool to take the Tramway at night to see all the city lights.

That's the tramcar's shadow. There were two windows that were open, and I took several pictures out both. It kinda scared me sticking my camera out the window, but I had a good grip on it, and it is still in my possession. 

And this is a completely random flower that I thought looked pretty. :)

     This was a super fun field trip, and the views were amazing. Thanks for reading this, and be sure to check out my post next week at TAJ!! I'll be posting my summer post. I wasn't able to post it in the usual rotation over there, so I had to move it back a few weeks. But if you enjoyed my school post, I'd check this one out!

     Thank you for reading!!