Met with other hikin' fools (Kathryn, Lindella, John H, Indie Jack, Elena, Jenny, Terry, Cindy and Brian) at the Mill Creek Ranger station and then carpooled up to the trail head. We started hiking into the erie mist around 6 AM -- I wondered when the headless horseman would ride by
Patches of snow started just below Poop Out hill and there were lots of new downed trees 
There was still a signficant amount of snow at South Fork meadows. We made our way up the east side of Christmas tree hill and had our first good look at the north chutes of San Gorgonio. We donned crampons, ice axes, helmets and headed up. The wind was blowing pretty well, which provided exhilarating views of clouds moving over the snow covered San Gorgonio ridge to our west.
It became steeper and icier as we ascended and I felt a familiar fear clutch my gut and take my breath away. I'm still working on overcoming the terror of sliding out-of-control down hill that began after my hiking misadventure 3 years ago. Terry and Cindy provided encouraging words and psychologically short-roped me up step by step
In addition, Terry kindly and patiently provided advice on technique, taking into account my 7 spinal fusions and stiff left ankle.
We finally popped out on the ridge and made our way to the summit of San Gorgonio. We did not have enough protection from the howling wind on the summit and moved to the stone shelter (hiker's Stonehenge) to the east. We huddled together while eating, which led to some great comic relief in addition to keeping us warm
The artic wind knocked us around as we headed back along to the ridge to find a good descent route. I wasn't looking forward to going down and once again, Terry helped out. Before long, we reached softer snow and removed our crampons to glissade
Once we could no longer glissade, we found that the snow had softened up considerably and began to post hole. This was not a problem going down Christmas tree hill but then we reached South Fork meadows. I suddenly dropped down at least a foot. The snow shelf broke when I tried to step out and I found myself laying on my back in the bog. Several minutes later, I broke through a snow bridge up to my knees in the gunk. At least I provided comic relief for everyone -- we were getting pretty fed up with the bloody bog
Winding our way through willows, trees, soft snow and streams seemed to take forever (there was even some crawling on hand and knees) but finally we were back on the blessed dirt trail
I still expected the alien plant from the Little Shop of Horrors to pop out at any moment and claim one of us. John wryly warned us to watch out for the ROUS's (rodents of unusual size) from the Princess Bride As we hiked out, we were once again surrounded by surreal mist as the daylight faded.
Had a wonderful group dinner at Maya's in Mentone. I staggered into my home about 9:30 and decided to forgo a Sunday Easter hike.
Thanks again everyone for a most excellent adventure
I think I even managed to wash the smell of boggy decay off my clothes and day pack
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
