We took the first tram up and obtained two permits. I hiked with Cindy, Saint John H (he resupplied me on the JMT), Krai, Ben and Hengst Joe, Kathryn (she started the club) and Indie Jack and were in the second group. Headed down to the creek and took a nice path going up the left side rather than the main trail.
Wound up taking a slightly circuitous route to upper Tamarck, where we rejoined Kathryn and Jack's group. Finally started heading uphill through the forest to the junction of the old Tamarack trail and the main trail. (Cindy kept asking me when we would start climbing, we're cut from the same cloth
). There's a gully that goes up to a saddle to the right of Jean Peak which I love to take when there's adequate snow coverage. Due to the amount of exposed brush and rocks, however, we stayed to the left of the gully and switchbacked up the ridge.
This was a blast as we were in virgin powder snow but it was also a heck of a lot of work. I was sinking past my knees into snow. We had to take care not to get a snowshoe caught between rocks hidden beneath the snow. It took us quite a while to gain the saddle but everyone was in good spirits and having fun (at least that's what they told me
).
Cindy noted that we'd "earned" Jean, so we started to make our way over to the peak. We were too high, which placed us up in rocks. After negotiating rocks, trees, etc. we wound up traversing up the left side of the ridge to Jean Peak.
We had the summit to ourselves. It was beautiful and there was little wind -- I was comfortable in a tee-shirt. Cindy broke out her home=made pumpkin bread and made everyone extremely happy -- it is excellent. We traversed back down to the saddle and made our way along the ridge over to San Jacinto. The lack of adequate snow cover made this more challenging than usual. Took off the snowshoes to get around one of the rocky bumps on the ridge, then stayed to the right and made our way to San Jacinto.
We met up with the rest of the group at the hut -- they'd already summited and had been there a while. I had misunderstood our intended route -- we should have hopped on the trail at the intersection rather than headed up
Bless their hearts, they joined us at the summit and we properly celebrated the 1st year anniversary with suitable beverages and more of Cindy's delicious pumpkin bread. It was a dual celeberation as it a club members (Muku's) birthday 
We donned snowshoes at the hut and took the winter route down to ridge to the Miller Saddle. Since we'd already summited two peaks, we opted to make it the San Jacinto trifecta and climb Miller. I think that's the largest number of people I've ever been with on the Miller summit
Scrambled down, put on microspikes and headed down the main trail (ugh -- I want SNOW!) to the Tamarack junction, were we retraced our path (except for the extra morning mileage) back to the tram. Night fell as we greeted Ranger Sue Neary before heading up the cemet switchbacks. Due to our late arrival (5 PM), I expected a bit of a wait to go down. An hour later, we were flying down to our cars.
Of course, the first year anniversary had to include a celebratory dinner at the original Las Casuelas. Another fabulous day with friends.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
PS I won't be heading out from the tram again until we have adequate snow cover. There's just enough to significantly slow progress and create ice and not enough to go cross country.
