AT skiing on the mountain

[ghalsne]

Hi Im newish to the region and am told Mt San Jacinto is a good spot for skinning and turns. I was peeking at the Long Valley Webcam and seeing some decent looking snow! Is it to early for back country skiing yet? Thanks!

Grae

[Sally]

Hi ghalsne, I was up at the top of the tram yesterday and there was only about 3" of snow. It's probably not much deeper higher up so don't dust off your skis yet! We are all hoping for good snow this year (the last 2 years stunk).

[ghalsne]

Hi Sally, thanks! Yes, we went up yesterday (11/22)... Just kill a day and see some sights. What a great set up. Wish the annual pass was a bit more reasonable, but I will be back regardless for some x country.

My question is more...(was) where do you go from the tram top. But now after hiking around I got my bearings a bit. I hope to have some x country pals by then!

Grae

[Lermo]

Hi Grae,

I haven't AT Skied San Jacinto yet, but it looks like you would take the same route as most of us do while snowshoeing the mountain. From the peak, traverse east, down over towards Miller saddle, then downhill to Tamarack valley. From there, head out via the Sid Davis drainage. I've seen a couple posts on this site along with the following YouTube posts. Hopefully we'll get enough snow this year for good snowshoeing & skiing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoVDdH0eRG4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC2DYdfkOzM

Thanks,

Lermo

[ghalsne]

Lermo, thanks for the info! Yeah those videos were what got me psyched! Fun times. Pray for snow!!!

[sdtrackrunner]

Hiya, those are my rather mediocre videos (thanks for the link!) and here's some much better stuff by my friend at SierraDescents.com:

http://www.sierradescents.com/video/201 ... -jean.html

http://www.sierradescents.com/skiing/sa ... -face.html

The San Jacinto area can be very fun for AT skiing. There are some nice low angle (<30 deg) slopes for "safer" storm day skiing and learning to ski on funky backcountry snow, which you will find a lot of on most days. There's also the monster descents of Snow Creek and other gems on the north side of the mountain. We have had a few disappointing years in terms of snowfall, like Sally said, so fingers are crossed for a healthy year. This week it looks like a nice base building storm is heading in so I'm pretty excited about that. If the other two major mountain ranges in socal aren't on your radar yet, you might want to research skiing in the San Gorgonio Wilderness. The approaches are longer but the best terrain in socal is hiding back there, in my opinion. There's also the Baldy area, but there's pretty well known to the LA crowd. Hopefully I'll see you out there some time soon.
-Brent

[Dave]

howdy, I'm up most weekends when conditions allow. I've got my secret stashes that are skiable with only a few feet... which might happen this week! I hope to see you up there, I'd love to show you around.