We could see evidence of Monday's storm on the drive up to Angelus Oaks. We parked at the Oaks restaraunt and at 6:10 AM walked down 38 to the frontage road. As soon as we started up the trailhead road, we were postholing. Hmm...is this perhaps an omen of things to come? We donned snowshoes and continued up the road.
No one was parked at the trailhead -- what a surprise
We started to make our way up the trail, leaving fresh tracks in our wake. I settled into what I call my slow-twitch climbing mode -- taking measured steps and trying to not think about how long it would take us to get to the sign at Manzanita flats. All the way up, I was wishing that I knew a shorter, steeper winter route. Saw a gully that looked hopeful and saved that thought for later.
It took us over two hours to reach the little forest that we normally reach in one hour. Even without snow, the section from the beginning of the forest to the Manzanita flats sign seems to take forever though there's not much elevation gain. This time it felt like an eternity -- four hours of hiking. Near the sign we stopped to have some hot soup and and discuss options -- turn around or go on a bit further. We decided to go up.
Rather than traverse around the ridge in deep snow, we went up and over it. After briefly rejoining the trail, we started heading cross country up and to the left (east). I misjudged our position on the ridge (we weren't far enough to the left), so we had do some shrubshoeing. Finally, we were headed up the east side of the ridge to the little saddle at 9.3 K. Normally, we would continue on up the ridge to San Benardino peak. By this time, however, we'd been out for 6 hard hours and it was 12:30 PM. We called it and had lunch, enjoying the splendid view below us.
Started down at 1 PM and stayed to the right of the ridge to avoid the shrubs. The initial descent down to the Manzanita flats was fun and fairly rapid, as we the snow was deep and powdery. From there, it was just a slog on the main trail. Once we re-entered the forest, I would stop occaisonally to stretch my neck and shoulders, which were aching from the constant use of poles in the deep snow.
We passed the wilderness sign and came upon the gully that we'd spied on the ascent. Between the map and GPS, it tooked like the gully would take us down to the frontage road near the fire station. We decided -- what the heck? Let's try something new. Since this was my wild hair, I went first. The gully was steep but quite manageable. Up high, the main obstacles were rocks buried under the snow. As we dropped lower, we started encountering downed trees blocking our descent. Most of these were easily managed by going around, under or over.
About 2/3 of the way down, Sally noted that the trail was just up and to our left. It's too bad the GPS didn't emit a loud warning buzzer or red flashing light. We continued down the gully and conditions deteriorated. Less snow, more downed trees, willows, bubbling stream, exposed rocks -- you get the picture. One area was particulary hairy and I kept apolgoizing to Sally, who as usual took everything in her stride.
We thought about climbing out and getting on the ridge on either side of the gully. However, we didn't want to wind up with a big drop off before reaching either the frontage road or highway 38. We could hear cars, so we knew we were close to civilization. It was maddening. Right about then, we found a nice little shelf to walk on the left side of the gully. Sally found rebar -- evidence of civilization. We looked up to our left and saw a cabin with snow on the roof. Even better -- the little shelf turned out to be a snow-covered trail that took us up to the cabin. Eureka!
Walked past the cabin, hopped on the frontage road and cut across the snow and highway 38 to Sally's wonderful little red car. Enjoyed warming up while eating good food at the Oaks. At least now we know that gully is not a workable short cut.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
