Heard that the north chutes of San Gorgonio had adequate snow, so sister Sally, Marilyn Tomsha and I started from Southfork about 6:30 AM yesterday. As we got closer to Southfork meadows, the trail became icier and we donned microspikes. I wanted to take a direct approach if possible, so we headed up the back of a ridge on the left (east) side of Christmas tree hill.
Once we crested, we were pleased to find that the moraine field was fairly well covered with snow. Even better -- we were able to walk through it in microspikes and didn't drop into the rocks or brush
Headed up the little ridge to what I call the "staging area" for the north chutes (~10 K). At the top of the ridge, we started post holing through icy crust 
Donned snowshoes and ice-axes and headed up. We sunk in nicely with the snowshoes and were able to use them all the way up. Towards the top of the right hand chute, the snow started to thin out, so we headed over to the ridge on the right and took it up to the San Gorgonio backbone ridge.
Made our way over wind swept snow to the summit of San Gorgonio out of the wind. It had taken us 6.5 hours. By 1 PM, we started back down. We switched to crampons to descend down the ridge -- we planned to down climb or glissade depending on conditions. Before long, we were breaking through an icy crust up to our knees. I wasn't comfortable with the snow, so we continued to walk down after replacing the crampons with snowshoes.
The snow became even icier once we reached the flat area to the north of Christmas tree hill -- it glistened like an ice skating rink. I tried to retrace our route through the moraine but wound up too far to the right so that we came out on the winter snowshoe track to the east of Christmas tree hill. Took off the snowshoes (ahh!) and put on microspikes. From Southfork meadows, it was a long walk back to the trailhead. Put headlamps on for the last half hour. It was 6:15 PM when we reached Marilyn's vehicle -- a long day indeed.
Had a great meal at El Mexicano before heading home. Hopefully this incoming system will give us some new powder to play in.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen
