Headed up again yesterday. The Bowl has really metled out. I went up the middle, following the route that Cindy and I had taken 8 days earlier. I thought I could follow the snow tongue up -- not so. I had to cross several areas of dirt. Fortunately, nothing came down on me (wore a helmet) and I didn't knock anything down.
The snow was crappy -- soft on top and icy underneath. Even kicking in, sometimes my foot would slip until the points caught. Not a sensation I like. Folks I know from the San Jacinto hiking club and elsewhere started a bit later and went up the far left side next to the trees.
I breathed a sigh of relief existing the chute and headed to the summit, where I ran into other friends (Liz, Shurovi, Larry Wong, David and Justin) who'd come up the ski hut trail in microspikes. We descended together and ran into the other bowl climbers on our way down.
Even with microspikes, we had some unplanned glissades down the trail and off the side of the trail. When reached the tree section above the bowl, I took out my ice axe. Thought I'd do some short glissades but it was too icy.
Made it back to our vehicles without incident. As usual, the road had some bad ice near the gate. I treated myself to an early dinner at PF Changs in Rancho Cucamonga (Sierra was my server) before heading home.
While on the summit, we saw a helicopter howering over us and west Baldy. I learned later from a friend that they had to rescue a hiker and skier -- don't know the exact details.
I'm heading back over to San Gorgonio for friendly snow.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
Sally and I are headed up San Bernardino peak tomorrow -- hope to snowshoe cross country to the summit past Manzanita flats.