After slogging through snow on my last attempt, Marilyn and I carried snowshoes, microspikes and ice axes. The road was icy going up to the Mill creek crossing, so we donned microspikes. No significant snow until we reached Vivian Creek, where we departed from the trail and headed up the ridge. I have never gone up or down the same way twice and always feel like there should be a better route than what I've choosen
Once on the ridge, we donned snowshoes when we started post holing, then took them off due to the lack of consistent snow coverage. The snow made for slow going up the ridge. By the final steep climb, we just went directly up with microspikes. When the ridge started to flatten out below Dobbs, we started post holing and donned snowshoes again. This section was absolutely gorgeous -- wind blown snow and cornices galore. It was like snowshoeing over baby snow waves.
Now that we finally had decent snow, we headed up to Jepson. I was hoping for a lot more snow coverage on the north chutes of San Gorgonio -- they looked pretty thin towards the top
The views of the surrounding peaks and snow covered Dry Lake were beautiful.
Followed our tracks back, switched the snowshoes for microspikes and carefully made our way down. Got back to Marilyn's car after nearly 11 hours. The wonderful snow at the top made the trip worth it, but I'll wait for the ridge to melt out before I head back up.
It will be really interesting to check out the snow conditions on the north side of San Gorgonio -- I fear it will be a snow slog to get to the good stuff and yet the good stuff doesn't go all the way up.
Miles of smiles,
Ellen