Jepson Peak and Dobbs from Vivian
Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2013 3:09 pmHowdy All 
I almost called this "Sister Sally's Revenge." On our last trip together, we were postholing constantly on the Dobbs ridge.
After slogging through the snow on the north side on Sat, Sally understood that I wanted to avoid that side of San Gorgonio. We got started around 6 AM, carrying microspikes and snowshoes. We didn't encounter any significant snow on the Dobbs ridge until about 10.4 K. The snow had consolidated pretty well, so we booted it up to Dobbs where we had lunch. Made our way along the ridge to where it joins the San Gorgonio backbone and headed up to Jepson peak. We saw one set of footprints traversing along the ridge on the snow covered summer trail.
Every now and then, the snow was deep or soft and we'd wind up with one of both legs buried up to our crouch. This didn't happen very often or we'd have donned our snowshoes. It was very windy and cold on the San G backbone and on Jepson, but we had found a nice, sheltered area to have a snack. I couldn't believe the amount of snow melt off the north chutes and big draw in just four days -- depressing. Made our way back down to the Dobbs ridge and continued to descend. We had to correct our course at several points. Weird -- I didn't lose the route going up.
Finally rejoined the trail, headed down the last nose-bleed descent of Vivian and enjoyed a fabulous meal at El Mexicanno. The snowshoes were insurance -- carried them but didn't need them.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
I almost called this "Sister Sally's Revenge." On our last trip together, we were postholing constantly on the Dobbs ridge.
After slogging through the snow on the north side on Sat, Sally understood that I wanted to avoid that side of San Gorgonio. We got started around 6 AM, carrying microspikes and snowshoes. We didn't encounter any significant snow on the Dobbs ridge until about 10.4 K. The snow had consolidated pretty well, so we booted it up to Dobbs where we had lunch. Made our way along the ridge to where it joins the San Gorgonio backbone and headed up to Jepson peak. We saw one set of footprints traversing along the ridge on the snow covered summer trail.
Every now and then, the snow was deep or soft and we'd wind up with one of both legs buried up to our crouch. This didn't happen very often or we'd have donned our snowshoes. It was very windy and cold on the San G backbone and on Jepson, but we had found a nice, sheltered area to have a snack. I couldn't believe the amount of snow melt off the north chutes and big draw in just four days -- depressing. Made our way back down to the Dobbs ridge and continued to descend. We had to correct our course at several points. Weird -- I didn't lose the route going up.
Finally rejoined the trail, headed down the last nose-bleed descent of Vivian and enjoyed a fabulous meal at El Mexicanno. The snowshoes were insurance -- carried them but didn't need them.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen