C2C - Winter hiking

[summitbagger]

What is winter hiking usually like on Cactus to Clouds, specifically early December. Mountaineering boots and crampons or snowshoes? I realize it varies from year to year, but at what elevation does snow typically start?

[Hikin_Jim]

Be really careful if you go. A mountain guide was lost when he went down a chute in an uncontrolled glissade a couple of years ago. There are a lot of icy chutes up there. A marine last year shot 800 feet down one and somehow miraculously survived.

The funny thing about S. Cal. weather is that it's highly variable. Right after a major dump, you might want to bring snow shoes. If it's been a couple of weeks since it's snowed, you'll need an ice axe and crampons, and you'd better be really really good -- quick, and with recent practice in self arrest. On those steep chutes, you either self arrest within a split second or you die. You get one shot. If you don't stop, it's adios muchacho.

I don't mean to sound alarmist here. If you've done some mountaineering around here you know how bad things can get with the freeze - thaw cycle if it hasn't snowed for a while. Ice hard as a rock, and very unforgiving. I lost my dad in 2004 in those conditions. So, don't freak out especially if you're experienced and up to speed with self arrest, but do take it seriously.

As to where. Hmm. Usually it's around the traverse as I think about what people have posted over time. Again, in S. Cal. things can change radically one week to the next. Maybe the best policy is to stick close to this board and get the latest. Anyway, along the traverse and above is where I hear the most about people losing the trail in the snow or having difficulty with footing. We had one guy forced to bivvy overnight last year when he went up the wrong chute near Coffman's Crag. Several contributers to this board have been forced bivvy overnight on different occasions.

Just some thoughts and by no means a definitive answer,

HJ