Mt. San Jacinto Outdoor Recreation

Howdy All

Headed up again yesterday. The Bowl has really metled out. I went up the middle, following the route that Cindy and I had taken 8 days earlier. I thought I could follow the snow tongue up -- not so. I had to cross several areas of dirt. Fortunately, nothing came down on me (wore a helmet) and I didn't knock anything down.

The snow was crappy -- soft on top and icy underneath. Even kicking in, sometimes my foot would slip until the points caught. Not a sensation I like. Folks I know from the San Jacinto hiking club and elsewhere started a bit later and went up the far left side next to the trees.

I breathed a sigh of relief existing the chute and headed to the summit, where I ran into other friends (Liz, Shurovi, Larry Wong, David and Justin) who'd come up the ski hut trail in microspikes. We descended together and ran into the other bowl climbers on our way down.

Even with microspikes, we had some unplanned glissades down the trail and off the side of the trail. When reached the tree section above the bowl, I took out my ice axe. Thought I'd do some short glissades but it was too icy.

Made it back to our vehicles without incident. As usual, the road had some bad ice near the gate. I treated myself to an early dinner at PF Changs in Rancho Cucamonga (Sierra was my server) before heading home.

While on the summit, we saw a helicopter howering over us and west Baldy. I learned later from a friend that they had to rescue a hiker and skier -- don't know the exact details.

I'm heading back over to San Gorgonio for friendly snow.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

Great TR Ellen

Sorry our snow season is feeling like it's over on the west side here, versus the east side over by your guys where Gorgonio and San J still have enough to at least put on some snow shoes.

Only wish the stuff on the north side of San G in the chutes was more consolidated

Oh well, maybe we'll get lucky with some late season storms.

Ellen,

Great trip reports, so much information on snow conditions. Very valuable to people who have to drive several hours to Baldy, San Gorgonio and San Jacinto.

For what it's worth, Baden-Powell from Vincent Gap is a great snow climb at this point. Got a late start on Friday & only got about 2/3 up but conditions were excellent with axe & crampons up, and some long, fast glissades down.

Howdy Ed

Thanks for your kind words Sally and I are headed up San Bernardino peak tomorrow -- hope to snowshoe cross country to the summit past Manzanita flats.

Howdy Derick

I have never been up Baden-Powell and would love to do it in snow.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

Glissade in the trees? - bonk - hit your head.

Howdy Kathy,

You're absolutely right -- not a wise move. I can't afford to hit a tree with any body part. There were several short runs (clear butt tracks) avoiding the trees that folks had taken. Probably made when the snow was really soft and they could control speed with elbows and feet.

The only time I've ever glissaded down the actual bowl was that trip with you back in Feb 2011.

KathyW wrote:Glissade in the trees? - bonk - hit your head.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

Ellen: I wasn't thinking about the Baldy Bowl - I was thinking about the north side of Baden-Powell and all the trees.

Thanks Kathy I have never hiked from the north side. Want to go with folks who've been.

I'm a chicken when it comes to glissading - I need a really safe runout to do it - the idea of glissading on Baden-Powell's steep slope with all those trees sounds scarey to me, but that's just me.

Baden-Powell is a nice short/steep snow climb - relatively easy in terms of time and energy - you'll enjoy it when we get some good snow.

As it is now, that freeze and thaw cycle is probably creating some nice hard icy crust out there but I don't know because I haven't been above 6,000' in a long time. :)