Wes, Fred, and I left Pasadena shortly after 9, and were on the trail by 10am. We walked on the fire road for about a quarter mile to a tunnel. I tried to climb around the tunnel and avoid having to walk through it. But I had to turn back because the side of the tunnel towards the end was a vertical wall. We then walked down to the saddle which is about 3 miles from the trailhead. Then we had to walk on infrequently used trail through the forest for 1.8 mile to Mt. Lowe road. This part was mostly flat and had lots of trees and singing birds. Upon emerging on the road, we took pictures and walked for 15 minutes to get to Mt. Lowe campground. There were lots of people and it was noisy so we decided to go as close to the creek as possible and stopped for lunch. After a lazy lunch, we were excited to start the off-trail and canyon walking part. The first obstacle was a chute (maybe 20 degrees incline) that looked more slippery than it was. I volunteered to test how slippery it was and I was surprised that it was not slippery at all. But I had to sit down and use hands and legs to slowly crawl down. After walking for five minutes there was a steeper part on our way. Wes and Fred volunteered me to go down and see if it was safe to climb down that steep chute. I went down the tricky slope by going around the side, grabbing on the roots and unpromising hand holds on the rocks. After making it down, they urged me to go further to see if there are bigger and impossible drops ahead. So, I walked down for about two minutes only to be stopped by what looked like a hundred feet drop with the walls of the canyon barely two or three feet wide. Terrified, I came back running with the news. Fred had already lowered himself using webbing. As soon as I told them the news, Fred promptly climbed up, packed upt he webbing and he was ready to turn back. I did not want to miss this chance to explore the canyon so I told them to wait for two minutes and I ran down promising to find a good route around the hundred feet fall. Just before the big drop, I climbed on the left until I could look over the fall to get an estimate on how deep that fall really is. While walking around and worried that we might just have to turn back, I noticed a trail marker and when I walked around more I noticed a faint trail. Then I ran back to where Fred and Wes were waiting to head back and made this announcement. After much trying, they were convinced to give my trail a try.
Once I took them to the trail, it was straightforward going rest of the way. When we got to the bottom of the fall, Wes and I decided to study the fall from the bottom. Wes stopped just before the second fall. I climbed the second fall, took a picture of Wes at the bottom. He took mine. Then I walked to the bottom of the first fall which was a vertical fall with smooth walls. I took pictures, then climbed down to Wes, and we went to meet Fred. We could find trail only once in a while so we were walking on soft forest soil (cushioning) for couple miles. We went past a stone hut and eventually we met the main trail near a mine. Then we went up the trail to the fire road (a mile or so). We met lots of kids talking and arguing loud there. We gave them a head start so that we could beat them later. We walked on the fire road for about two miles to Mt. Lowe Campground thus making a loop. This time, we wanted to get back to the car as soon as possible so we decided to ascend Mt. Lowe directly (using the west side trail, couple miles) and then down to the fire road, through the tunnel and to the trail head thereby forming the second loop and completing a figure eight for the day.
Francois and I left downtown LA around 8:45. We got gas and stopped to buy food. It was 10:30 by the time we arrive in Mt Baldy village. I wanted to buy a bottle of Gatorade but turns out the only vending machine in town was broken. The person at the hut said there is no grocery story in Mt Baldy village. Francois bought a pair of gloves (which he did not use) for $20. Especially after he bought his gloves, we felt all geared up and we headed up the mountain.
The hike to bear flat was exactly like my last hike except the mosquitoes: this time it was probably a little too cold for them. Unfortunately there were lots of ladybug alikes on the trail. There was no way to walk without trampling on them. A lot of the trail was covered in leaves, nuts (hazel nut type nuts), and other plant body parts. Shortly after bear flat, we hit snow. Small avoidable patches in the begining and gradually contiguous stretch by the time we hit the first pine trees. At least two or three groups had gone before us so we did not have to do much trailbreaking but I was getting pretty tired. We stopped for brittle cookies and on we went higher into the mountain. Around 3:15 we finally arrived at the open area from where we could see West Baldy, Baldy, the notch, and lots of snow. At this point the trail was not broken as much as we had wanted. We then arrived at a place where the forward going steps stopped. It was 3:45 and it looked impossible to get to Baldy and back on snow at least a foot deep and unbroken trail. So, we spent 10 minutes just looking everywhere and started heading down. It was fun to run down while the snow was cushioning the jumps. After a while we hit the dirt trail and we were realizing how much better it was to run and slide down on snow. Then towards the end (around 6:15pm) we hit the paved road on which we had to walk for about half a mile to get to the car. While walking on asphalt, I was reminding myself how much better it was to walk on a hiking trail.
After a half an hour nap, Francois, Hesky, Jo-Anne and I left LA around 2am. But before leaving, we had a lot of fun being a part of operation "Mongoose". Hesky's above-average bike-packing skill made it possible for Jo-Anne and Francois to catch some nap even though there were two bicycles inside the minivan. We reach Big Pine around 7. Then we go up windy paved road for 15 miles. We were so excited that we even stopped for a picture. 15 miles of dirt road was a long and bumpy ride. A mile before the "locked" gate, Hesky and I unloaded the bikes. Biking the mile to the trailhead made both of us realize that mountain biking is harder that it looks.
At the trailhead (11,600 ft) we hang out for about an hour eating Hummus and Pita bread. We were surprised that we were so organized that we even let ourselves an hour to acclimatize. I wanted to try mountain biking as far as possible. I made myself tired biking up the first slope. After many rest stops, I finally managed to catch up with the rest of the group at the research station at 2 miles from the trailhead. At that point, a bike pedal came off so I had to abort mountain biking. After passing through smelly sheep barn, we arrive at the telescope to be greeted by clear and open sky. From this point, it was easy to see the top of the white mountain peak, and we could see the trail miles away. I followed the trail, but the rest of the group did some cross country with Francois as the leader. After a bit of downhill, we reach the saddle at which point the real climb starts.
Francois and Jo-Anne take off. Hesky and I take it easy. We even caught a quick nap on the trail. Hesky was feeling the effect of altitude so we made sure we took small and slow steps, drank plenty of water, and took a lot of rests. The trail was made for 4-wheelers so it was less steep than usual hiking trails. Unfortunately, that also makes the trail much longer than it has to be and the long and gradual switchbacks were frustrating at times. Hesky and I saw four mountain goats enjoying the sun. They didn't seem afraid of humans. After almost giving up many times, we reach the summit around 4:45. This was my third CA-14'er and the first for the rest of the group. We were all happy that we did it. Hopefully, Hesky got what he asked for (He is always asking to do crazy things). After taking pictures and resting for a bit we started heading down worried that it might get dark long before we make it to the trailhead.
Going down, rather than following the trail with long and gradual switchbacks, we raced straight down to the saddle at the bottom. In 40 minutes we covered the same distance that took two hours to climb. In another 20 minutes we climbed the hill coming out of the saddle. We took a quick break enjoying the sunset. The grass on the expansive field were glowing with the yellow; the outline of the sierras provided a clear contrast to the bright yellow sky, and the horizon on the east was bathed with pink and blue. Inspired and mesmerized, we snapped a picture and we were back to running down the mountain to the best of our tired abilities.
It got dark when we reached the telescope after the last uphill we would have to do today. We decided to walk without flashlight because the full moon was providing enough light for walking. We never remember the distance between telescope and the science stations being so great. Anyways, we congratulated ourselves when we reached the science center thinking we were practically done. But it turns out, the distance between the science station and the trailhead is much larger than what any of us can remember. At one point, I spotted three or four coyettes running around and that got some of us scared. It was a relief when we spotted our cars. 15 miles of dirt road took a huge toll (psychologically) on us. Hesky almost fell sick and we had to stop a few times. When we got on to the paved road, we were surprised how long it was even to get to Big Pine. It is possible that our sense of distance got distorted in the evening/night or someone sneaked in and made the trails and the roads longer while we were climbing the mountain. When we started the trip, we had never thought that it would be 3 in the morning by the time we are back in LA.
David and I got to Mt Baldy Village at 9:30. We were planning to go up
the Mt Baldy Village trail and come down on Ski Hut trail to Manker
Flat. He dropped me off there, drove his car to Manker Flat, coasted
down the road to meet me at the village again at 10am. I was excited
about this trail because I had come up to Mt Baldy numerous times in the
past but they were all through the notch and devil's backbone. The trail
is nice and it had thick vegetation on both sides. There were some flies
when the trail went up a canyon. We got to Bear Flat a little after
11. There were lots of insects and birds making all kinds of sound. We
also saw some lizards. The trail climbs to a ridge and follows the ridge
through coniferous forest and emergest into a desolate and exposed
terrain at 8500 ft. David was behind a little bit but I wanted to keep
on going, so I followed the trail which does not quit go up West Baldy
but does directly to the saddle between the two Baldy's and up
Baldy. Then I took an hour-long nap on Baldy. David arrived at 5:30pm
and was ready to start heading down immediately. Going down was easy for
a while, then there were somes switchbacks on loose rocks and mud just
before the Ski hut which was open because someone was making a beer run
for a work party scheduled for October. We spent half an hour resting
near the hut. Then I headed down and did not stop before San Antonio
Falls. I chatted with people who worked for an adventure guide company
in Arcadia. After half an hour David showed up and we walked together to
the parking lot. We drove the car to Mt Baldy Village where we had to
retrieve our bike. David went into the fenced off Ranger Station (they
had already closed but our bike was still inside their compound). When
David was emerging out of their compound, there was intense light
shining on him; he thought it was the Police who had come to get him but
it was a tow truck that had just arrived to help someone with his
car. This 5800 ft elevation gain, although comparable in number,
certainly was not in the same league as Mt Shasta but would be a good
practice before I do anything big like that.
It was a five hour drive to Mt Shasta town. It was dark. Slipped into Rite-Aid when the guys were closing the store and bought five liters of water and some zone bars. I wanted to buy power jell but could not find it. Then went to the next food store, and still could not find power jell, so had to settle for energy bars. After buying a calzone for dinner, I managed to get myself lost in Mt Shasta before catching Everett memorial highway to the alpine land. As my mini van snaked up the highway, I was dizzy with fantasies about how great the following day was going to be. I got to the Old ski bowl parking lot at 11 pm, dressed myself for the night, ate calzone, drank some water and went to sleep. The mini van made it for a more comfortable sleep than last year's.
I woke up at 2:30, packed things up and it was 3am when I jumped out the van and shut the door. It was a beautiful night; moonlight made flaslight unnecessary. It was a little scarry to be by myself in rugged terrain with no trails and with only a vague idea on which way I was supposed to be heading. Looking at the map and from description I had heard, I was supposed to go up the ridge on the left. I was anxiously looking for a low pass or at least a nice saddle on the ridge so that I could safely traverse the ridge before I bury myself in the talus. I walked around and on some of the snow patches and I was surprised that I hadn't already slid to the bottom of the mountain. As I got closer to the ridge, the side of the ridge I was climbing got darker with the moonlight shadow. I was not following any trail, so I thought nothing can be worse than just going up the tallus to the lowest spot on the ridge. After some serious treadmill action (moving a lot but hardly gaining any height), I pulled myself up the ridge around 5am.
From the ridge, I could see Helen lake, also some flickering lights that were moving randomly supposedly on a trail. After drinking some water and biting an almost frozen energy bar, I was ready to take advantage of poor daylight, fading moonlight, and downhill skiing on scree field. My plan at this point was to scree-ski down to the patch of snow then enjoy some talus ride up to Helen lake. By the time I was at Helen lake, my Intel watch had already claimed it was 6, most of the climbers barring a few people whose alarm clock didn't work had already left, and my legs were already making a statement about how much they enjoyed the talus ride.
Determined not to wear crampons as much as possible, I walked up the sloping snow beyond Helen for another 40 minutes until fear of death overwhelmed crampons on to my boots. At this time I caught up with Mark and Paul from the bay area and followed them at a cozy pace because I was starting to get tired and a bit too excited. I had come from the bottom while most people had camped at Helen lake for good reasons; I wanted to take it easy because I had already caught up with the last bunch of people leaving from Helen lake. By the time we made it to the mouth of the rightmost chute, it was 10:30. After doing an ice-climbing type maneuver to climb the face of ice blocking the chute, we found ourselves enjoying the sun and the view below. After toilsome half an hour, we made it to the top of the chute, at which point we decided to take a long break as if we had earned it.
After taking some pictures and some drinking and eating, we headed for the misery hill at 11:30. Misery hill did not live quite up to my expectation. Both Mark and Paul were saying they were tired but they agreed that misery hill still does not compare to coming up to red banks and climbing up the chute. After misery hill, it was a huge psychological blow to see how high we had to go before we reached the summit of Mt Shasta. Following the trail on a snow field, we made it to the bottom of the final face. From this vantage pint, Mt Shasta could not have been more demoralizing.
The final face that started at the sulphur spring looked too big to even think about climbing. Determined not to have eaten all those energy bars and not to have drank all that gatorade in vain, I said to myself that I was going to climb this face even if it meant I had to eat another energy bar. I ate half of a zone bar (apple cinnamon flavor), then followed Mark up the slope. I was suprised how small the summit area was but nevertheless happy to have climbed my second California 14'er. The three of us and a couple that was already on the summit after some intense congratulating each other spent another hour discussing all the mountains we could see from the top of Mt Shasta.
We decided to head down at 3pm. Climb down was easy up to the notch. After climbing from the second level to the first, the difficult part was not to slide and die on the first level before reaching the south-western part of red banks. This was the most challenging and scary part of coming down the mountain. Once we hit the snow, we were able to glissade almost all the way to Helen lake from just below the chute in less than half an hour.
Not wanting to traverse scree field on the trail I charted in the morning, Mark and Paul had offered a ride from Bunny Flat to the Old Ski Bowl. As an aftermath of glissading, snow had gotten into my boots and pants and my entire lower body was wet. I changed into shorts and took time drying myself in the sun while Mark and Paul packed up their tent. From there, it was a miserable couple hours to Bunny Flat. The last part of the trip is never exciting because you have already done what you wanted to do and you had to do this part just so that you could go home. It was 9pm by the time we emerged into the Bunny Flat parking lot.
David (with his dog - Isabelle) and I drove to Colby Canyon trailhead. Unfortunately Isabelle could not make it past the first mile of uphill. With a black coat and a hot sand on the trail, it was very difficult for her to go up. David then returned with his dog and I continued up to the saddle. I was getting a little tired and dehydrated in this hot afternoon. I made sure to take plenty of rest breaks while going up the class-3 boulders towards the summit. I don't remember this stretch (between the saddle and the peak) being so long. Following the green arrows in the nearly vertical "path" through the boulders just beneath the peak, I made it to the peak. Just a couple minutes past the peak, I stopped for a quick sandwich in the shade. The trail to the Red Box station was new for me because last time I had gone back on the same trail down Colby Canyon. The trail to Red Box is similar to the eastern trail between the road and the saddle. After walking on this trail for what seemed like a long time, I met David who was coming up after taking care of the dog. Because of the intense heat, I got very tired and thirsty by the end of the day.
Sunhee and I drove to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, camped overnight and drove to Wolverton to go on a hike to Heather Lake. Lots of big trees and cooler temperature was a much needed change after not having gone hiking for almost a month. The trail is well maintained and climbs gradually for 2 miles to a junction. From this point, one can take Hump trail or trail via Lamphouse to Heather lake. Snow advisory at the visitor center said Hump trail has less snow so we took this trail. The trail gets steeper and after jumping across a creek, we encountered patches of snow and it got dry again when we got to the top. Then I went down another half a mile in deep snow until I found the sign announcing the merger of Hump and Lamphouse trails and a sign saying Heather lake is closeby. I went back up the mountain to fetch Sunhee and we went down to the lake. Lots of snow around the lake. We saw some birds and marmots digging hole in the ground and sun bathing on big rocks by the lake. The lake made a good scenery in the midst of snow-capped mountains. There were other lakes a mile from Heather lake but we decided to spend more time at Heather lake and come back before it was too late to visit other places in the park.
Abby, Jamesina and I left for Death Valley on the 22nd. Got a chance to walk around Texas Spring Campground ($12/night) before going to the Ranger talk at the Furnace creek visitor center. The talk was about things rangers do behind the scenes to maintain their lives and take care of plants and animals in the park. On the 23rd, we hiked in the Golden Canyon area. We started at Golden Canyon trailhead, hiked to Zabriskie point, then back to the car via Gower Gulch logging a total of six miles. After an afternoon stroll on Dante's peak, we went to a ranger talk in the evening that chronicled the history of death valley railroad. On the 24th, we drove to the mouth of Titus canyon and hiked in Fall Canyon. A bit of scrambling to the right of the first fall took us to the second section of the hike. I did a little scrambling on a side of an easy ramp on the wall of the Canyon. We turned back a mile or so after the first fall logging a total of eight miles. After a detour to Scotty's castle, we stopped at Hebe Craters. I walked around the rim of the Big Hebe. Turns out it is longer than I had expected. We then drove to Wild Rose to camp (free). On the 25th, we climbed Wildrose peak. The upper slopes had some patches of snow but my gaitors were totally uncalled for. After enjoying a view of the valley from a Western vantage point and looking at the gradually sloping trail on Telescope peak we ran down to the Charcoal Kilns after having walked 8.5 miles. We drove to Big Pine and camped there that night. On the 26th, we hiked 4 miles on the eastern slopes of Sierra, enjoying the shade and cool breeze in this coniferous forest, until we hit the snow. We were probably a few hundred feet from Olancha pass. This was the last hike in our four day hiking series.
I took Ramki on his first mountaineering experience. We went to REI in Santa Ana to rent his mountaineering goodies. After gearing him up with Snowshoes, crampons, and ice axe, we hit the road. We hiked up the first mile on the trail and Ramki got to try his snow shoes which he enjoyed a lot. I went a little beyond the first set of camps to see if the snow condition looked different from what John and I had experienced two weeks earlier. I was surprised that the snow was still powdery and at least a foot deep making snow shoes necessary.
This time we really wanted to climb San Gorgonio. John even wanted to drive there Friday night and start climbing 4 or 5am Saturday morning. I talked him out of that and we decided to leave at 2 or 3am Saturday morning. By the time we left our place, it was 5:00am. By the time we started hiking it was 7:30am. We had decided that we would not carry snowshoes because the snow is not going to be deep (from our experience last week) and it is too heavy and inconvenient to strap it to a backpack. Snow was dry so we were hardly leaving a trail behind us. Almost like walking on sand. We went across the river, took a quick break and started climbing. We were able to make a good pace up to the first camp areas after the first hill. There we met a person coming down. He was wearing jeans. He was saying he was not able to find the trail that goes through the valley from the first camp areas because avalance had come down from both sides of the valley and covered everything with soft snow. We were not willing to give up, so we kept on going except that going became slower and slower. We found the place where he had gotten confused earlier, we followed his trail as much as possible. When his tracks ended, we had to climb a steep wall covered in too much snow - we moving our hands and legs but we were hardly moving. After some tiring moments, we decided that we had found the trail and we kept on walking although there were no foot steps. We were sure we were on the right track because we remember from our summer hikes that the trail goes almost parallel to the creek we were following. After another 10 minutes, going became very slow because snow here was soft and deep. We were hardly making any progress. A group with snowshoes came by and passed us. We tried our best to follow their tracks but we were getting slower and slower. After an hour of ordeal, we decided to call it quits. We sat on the snow for a while and we wanted to explore a small mountain on the side. We even raced to the top. John claims that I won that race because he lost his motivation when we got close to the top and he wasn't even trying hard. After spending an hour going up, sitting on top of that ridge and taking pictures, we came down (I tried to glissade as well as roll down but it didn't work) and headed back. When we got back to the parking lot we were surprised that the parking lot was full and there was a ranger stopping people from coming to the trailhead because there was no parking for any more cars.
This was the craziest trip ever. John got to my place at 8am; we left promptly thereafter. Just before we got on to the freeway, I realized that we left the forest adventure pass in my car. So we drove back to my place and picked up the pass. It was 8:30 by this time. It was 10:00am by the time we got to Forest Falls. Just a little beyond downtown Forest Falls, we saw a bit of snow on the ground, so we thought we would just turn back and buy chains and go to the Vivian creek trailhead. Just tried to making a 3-point turn but he got stuck in snow on the road. We had to use hammer and snow shoes to free his car from snow. It took a good half an hour and we were freezing. Finally, we came to the general store at Forest Falls and we asked if they carry chains for snow. The lady said she had the right size chains for us but she only accepted cash. Unfortunately neither John nor I had enough cash. She pointed us to the only ATM in town (at a corner in her store). John tried his card. It didn't work. I tried my card. It didn't work. The lady then tried to reboot the ATM machine, the ATM machine was not able to reinitialize after booting up. We went to a store next door, we could not use our credit card to get cash. Then we drove 20 minutes to Stater Bros to buy chains. We drove back and we thought there wasn't enough snow so we would just try to go all the way to the trailhead. A ranger just before the trailhead stopped us and said we had to had chains on if we wanted to go further. He made us turn around, and we made a left from that main street, and parked and tried putting chains on. After struggling for 20 minutes, we realized that it was the wrong size for those tires. We assumed all the boxes of chains at the store were the same size, so rather than sticking to the box we read and verified that it has the right size, we went for a different color (we thought blue is a better box than a black one) and a clener box not from top of the pile. Then we had to go back to Stater Bros and bought another set of chain. We would not return the other chain because it got dirty on snow. Coming back, just before Forest Falls, we stopped and tired to put chains on. We struggled for half an hour and finally got those chains in place. John drove 20 feet and those chains fell off. We parked again and put chains again using 2+2 rule. Hook on the second ring on the inside and the outside. Finally the chains were in place, they didn't fall off, and we drove off to the trailhead causing John's car to make a lot of noise. By the time we hit the trail it was 3pm. There was lots of snow. While we were still on the dirt road section, we turned off to the river too early and went thought some waist-deep snow sections. We went back to the trail, and walked along, went across the river which was all covered in snow. There was good two feet of snow even there. We took a little break and started walking again. We decided that we would walk up to the begining of San Gorgonio wilderness which is one mile from the river. We got there, and walked up to the slopes of the waterfall. The snow was deep so we were able to sit and have a picnic on slope where it would be impossible to do so without snow. After spending nearly an hour, we came back.
Picked up Sumit from his apartment in LA. Then we drove to Mt Baldy Ski lift. Paid $10 each and took the "scenic ride" on a windy and chilly Sunday morning to the notch. It was unusually cold. I was getting worried that it would be colder up in the mountain. Once we were at the notch, it got sunny and warm. There was lots of snow starting the notch, we put on our crampons and started hiking. Sumit was complaining that this was too strenuous for his first hike on Baldy. With a lot of convincing, we made it to the top of the first hill, and we met a guy who was sitting on the rock. He said that he fell down the devil's backbone twice because he was trying to traverse it without crampons. Then he said he gave up. We found it to be a difficult traverse even with crampons and an ice axe. Sumit was worried that he might not be fully alert because tiredness while traversing. The terrian is very different from summer times. The narrow trail on the south-east side of the ridge is complete covered in snow. So it feels like traversing a 45 degree slope. To make things worse, the snow was lose so every step is thrilling. After what seems like hours, we made it to the pass before the final approach on Baldy. Sumit decided that he would not try to final slopes on Baldy. I then took off and made it to the Summit within half an hour from there. Conditions on this part of the trail was very similar to that of last week. After eating a Cliff bar and drinking some water, I sprinted down to meet Sumit and we started heading down. I fell twice while negotiating the traverse on Devil's backbone and had to self-arrest using an ice axe. A person following me fell (despite my warning to not follow me) and had to do awkard arrest using his hiking poles. Sumit just went up the ridge and walked down the ridge very carefully. Then I fell for the third time on the slope where I stopped a few trips ago. The snow here was very lose. It was a nine hour trip by the time we made it back to the car.
Went all the way to West Baldy on my own. Regular drive to the ski lift. I was not too surprised to see just small patches of snow here and there on the notch. I put on my crampons at the top of the first hill, and I was totally suprised to see snow suddenly disappear. I walked on crampons through all the dirt and rocky trails all the way to the pass before the final approach. I could not believe that snow had disappeared from the mountain. Once at the pass, I was excited to see that the final approach was covered in packed snow. I was expecting it to be difficult but it felt easier than going up these slopes without snow. You can step wherever you want when there is snow and there is no rocks to navigate and plan your steps. After what seems like a short while, I was at the summit. Wind here was absolutely crazy. I was getting worried that I was getting wind-burn all over my face, so I took out my scarf and wrapped it around my fact but it kept on coming off because of the force with which wind was blowing. It was hard to breathe. But I wanted to go to West Baldy. After taking a quick break, then I marched off to West Baldy. It probably took about 15 minutes. I wanted to see the route that Wes had mentioned. This route is supposed to follow a ridge from West Baldy all the way to Iron Mountain. This ridge was nowhere to be seen. The ridges from West Baldy all went straight down. After some puzzlement about this discovery, I sat down and took a long break. Drank a lot of water and ate some food. Then headed back to Mt Baldy. I discovered that my gloves are not warm enough for using with ice-axes. My hands were freezing whenever I had to hold ice-axe while negotiating the steep slopes from Mt Baldy. Took my crampons off at the pass and walked down to the noth. The trip lasted five and a half hours.
John and I wanted to do a little snow hiking so we drove off to San Gorgonio wilderness. We got to the Vivian creek trailhead, put on our winter boots and gaitors and were about to walk into the forest when a ranger stopped us. He explained to us that there is a search and rescue mission going on because someone is missing and it is extremely dangerous. He suggested that we go on Momyer trail if we want to hike up to the snow level. The ranger said that we should hit snow in half an hour and no more than an hour from the trailhead. Thsi sounded reasonable because John had read some forecast somewhere that said there is four feet of snow in the wilderness area. We drove to Momyer trailhead, parked and started hiking in a hot sunny afternoon. According to the ranger's direction and John's forecast, we were supposed to hit tons of snow in half an hour, so we were wearing winter boots, coat and warm clothes. We climbed for half an hour - we were still in desert - type environment. We hiked for another hour, we saw some frost on the ground and some snow on some trees, but no snow on the ground. We were sweating by now. After another hour, the trail started going down. We went across a creek and there was an icy patch immediatley after the creek. We put our crampons on, walked across the icy patch, only to find that the trail on the other side is completely dry. We thought we would hit more ice so we walked with our crampons on. First we walked for half an hour. No snow or ice. We walked for another half an hour. No snow or ice. We walked for another half an hour. We could not find any of those four feet of snow that John was talking about. When we reached a pass, we decided to just stop, relax, eat lunch, enjoy the scenery, then head back. Coming back we lost the trail but unknowingly we took a more direct route and we were probably down to the town of Forest Falls in an hour.
On Devil's backbone, steep snowly slopes made it impossible to go any closer to the summit.
Finally a trip after two months. Last month, John and I went to Mt Baldy only to find no snow anywhere near the base of the mountain. John and I drove about 250 miles north on 14 and 395 to Big Pine. Stopped at Lone pine (40 miles south of Big Pine) for a good pizza. Then we took a left at the flashing yellow light. We drove for another three of four miles and parked at "hiker's parking" just past campgrounds. Then we took our snowshoes and on we marched. It was cold and there was lots of snow -- exactly what we wanted. Bushy and hollow snow to the stream, more hollow snow after the stream and finally we were on snowshoes friendly terrain. It got steep immediately and we changed into crampons. This was about half an hour from the car. Then we laboriously started going up the mountain. The snow was deep but we were not able to use snowshoes becase of the incline. John could not resist his temptation to change into snowshoes, only to be forced back into crampons a few moments later. The general route was heading northwest towards a gulch and following it to the open area just below the trees. I went up a gulch, but John wanted to get ahead by following a snow ridge. I ended up having to wait for about an hour while he was changing between crampons and snowshoes. It was getting cold and taking long so I had to switch to three different rest stops. After about four hours, we were probably about 3/5 of the way to the summit, we decided to turn back. We took some pictures and started running down the mountain. I decided to not bother with snowshoes; I was sinking at least knee deep every step in the last half an hour. It was dark by the time we made it to the car. We drove to Bishop for a dinner at Subway and talked about monkey psychology while driving back.