the giant m

This past Sunday, my wife and I hiked up to the giant Moreno Valley “M” on Box Springs Mountain that overlooks Moreno Valley. This was her first trip all the way up to the “M”.

Here is a recap of our hike in pictures:

We started at Box Springs Mountain Park near Hidden Springs / Pigeon Pass in Moreno Valley…

The start of the trail we took…

This flower (and the insects – crane flies?) greeted us near the start of the trail…

Looking down at the parking lot, which kept getting smaller and smaller…

The “M” trail ahead…

The trail behind us so far…

Except for lizards of various colors, we didn’t see much wildlife…

Looking back at the trail…

A random flower on the way…

Looking up at the toughest part of the trail we followed. Note the faint outline of a trail going off to the left in the center of the picture. That trail takes you around this peak instead of up it. We missed that turn and kept climbing up…

Looking back down…

Trying to see the parking lot…

Still climbing up…

A look back down…

Another random lizard…

The moment we realized that we were climbing to the top of Box Springs Mountain instead of just to the “M”…

My favorite lizard of the day…

Looking down at the “M” and the “M” trail…

The view from above the “M”. Not the clearest day, but still a nice view…

A tiny lizard hanging out near the “M”…

A few weeds and wildflowers sticking out of the cracks of the “M”…

Standing on the “M”…

The trail down from the bottom of the “M” (the trail we intended to climb up but missed)…

The “M” is huge, and we had to hike down a bit to get the entire “M” in the picture…

There seem to be a few different trails that will take you up the initial peak or around it. On our way down we went around it (the trail I think we took the first time I hiked up to the “M” with our kids). If you hike to the “M”, you should study the routes before you go or go with someone who knows the way. The overgrowth is probably why we initially missed this trail…

Looking back up at the decision point to go up the initial peak or around it. This is the turnoff we missed on our way up…

The “M” from the 60 freeway…

Here are the routes we took according to my Garmin. The top line shows our route up, and the bottom line shows our route down. Per my Garmin, both routes were about 1.4 miles and 1,100-1,200 feet of elevation. We took two big bottles of water each, and wore trail shoes. It took us about 1.5 hours to climb, and about 1 hour to descend. We probably would have gone a little faster (not much) but we were taking pictures and had run a 5K the day before. We hiked on Sunday and I’m still sore on Tuesday morning.

For more info… rivcoparks.org

Looking for more hiking spots in and around the Inland Empire? Check out our list of Places to Hike in Riverside and Beyond.

Have you ever thought about climbing up to the big “M” on Box Springs Mountain? We have, and we finally did it last weekend.

If you don’t know what I’m writing about, the big “M” overlooks Moreno Valley and is visible from the 215 and 60 freeways as you pass by or through Moreno Valley.

I didn’t have any idea where to start our hike so I checked out the area around the “M” on Google maps. I noticed a parking lot off Hidden Springs Dr. (near Pigeon Pass Rd.), which turned out to be for the Box Springs Mountain Park. There is a trail map at the park (which someone decided to draw pictures on), but it didn’t help us too much so I am glad that I looked at the aerial photos first.

After our hike, I visited Riverside County’s rivcoparks.org website, which has a map of the various trails on Box Springs Mountain. We followed the “M” Trail (the red line), which the rivcoparks.org website lists as difficult.

Although we didn’t see many people on the trail, we did see a range of people including parents with kids, young adults with dogs, and a few elder statesmen who left us in the dust.

Once we reached the “M”, the view was great, although it was a bit of a hazy day.

The “M” is so large that I couldn’t fit it all into the frame when I was standing just slightly downhill from it.

You can’t see it too well in this picture, but there is quite a bit of graffiti on the “M”. I wonder if people would continue to deface the “M” if they knew how much time, effort and money volunteers have contributed to maintain the “M” since it was originally constructed in the mid-1960s. Unfortunately, I believe the answer is that some people still would.

If you take the “M” trail, bring enough water to last you to the “M” and back. Other than the drinking fountain at the bottom of the mountain, there is no water on the trail.

There are some challenging spots, especially if you choose to take some of the straight up paths rather than the zigzag paths. We hiked the trail in running shoes, but we might buy hiking boots for our next hike to handle the slippery and steep parts of the trail better. Unlike Mt. Rubidoux, the trail leading up to the “M” is all dirt and rock.

Next time we visit Box Springs Mountain, we will try to find out how to reach the big “C” that overlooks UCR.

Looking for more hiking spots in and around the Inland Empire? Check out our list of Places to Hike in Riverside and Beyond. #hikeriverside

the giant m

Looking down from the Giant Moreno Valley “M” on Box Springs Mountain

First Hike up to the Giant “M”