EISPIRATEN

Hmm....I tried the unsubscribe link, but it didn't seem to do anything. It just seemed to redirect me to the tapatalk.com home page. I think I'm just going to start sending email from tapatalk to my spam folder, which will have the effect of making me not get any emails. That's not the result I want...

I keep getting emails from "EisPiraten.com (via Tapatalk)" < trending@tapatalk.com > on random threads that I'm not interested in. I poked around in my control panel and profile, and I couldn't find any way to turn these off. I would still like to get notifications about threads that I'm a...

I did the Mount Wilson trail yesterday and saw a lot of the aftereffects of the recent fire and firefighting efforts. The good news is that the firefighters protected the summit area successfully, preserving the observatories and all the historical and educational stuff up there. In the final sectio...

If this is the first time you've tried following a route described by Brennen's online pages, here are some things to watch out for: (a) These pages are all about 20 years old, and I don't think he actively updates them. I have often found that conditions have changed significantly by the time I get...

JeffH wrote: Having to fax in and wait for reply is not a good modern system although that means we can still talk about how things were in the old days.

I use faxzero.com, which at least eliminates the need to use a physical fax machine. You can also send in an application by paper mail.

SGWA has a Google Calendar app these days that shows availability of permits: http://sgwa.org/wilderness-permits/permit-availability/ Over Labor Day weekend, this new notice showed up there: Effective 9/1/17 Day Hikes will not be limited to a quota. All Day Hikes have become available for each date ...

I took my dogs up the ski hut trail a couple of weeks ago. Solid snow started on the left side of the bowl under the trees, so we just played around there in the snow and didn't go any higher. There was a boot track.

One idea to keep in mind about risk is that it's proportional to how much you do of the risky activity. Taking that into account, it may not be as surprising that Ellen has run into serious trouble a couple of times -- she's out there in the mountains a *lot*. On the other hand, when I met the three...

Glad to hear Ellen and Sally are OK! I was on Baldy today and ran into the ill-fated group of three this morning at the ski hut, plus another guy hiking solo. The three were all young guys, acting super psyched for going up the bowl. I volunteered that I was concerned about avalanche danger after th...

Ellen wrote: ↑Did you use any traction up or down?

Hi Ellen -- Nice to hear from you. I used microspikes on the trail, then switched to crampons at the ski hut. But realistically the whole thing was doable with boots. There was an excellent boot track going up the bowl.

I did Baldy using the ski hut trail yesterday, went up the right side of the bowl, and then descended the bowl on climber's left. There was snow down as low as the Icehouse Canyon trailhead, but it looked to be melting rapidly at the lower elevations. There was knee-deep powder in some spots in the ...

A few more recent notes... I was hiking downhill when I did the kover kote, so I missed about four of the yellow arrows that were on the downhill-facing sides of rocks. Within the last month or so, someone has done a couple of really unsightly new graffitis. These are big hearts done with white spra...

I have a couple of drills with two batteries each and some wire brush attachments. When are you going to attempt the cleanup? Thanks for the offer, but I ended up doing it today with Kover Kote. I obscured all the yellow arrows I could find (42 of them). There may be some that I've missed. If anyon...

Fred Rice is going to drop off some Kover Kote at my house during the week, and I'm going to go up this weekend and see if I can just get all the arrows covered in one day of solo work. It sounds like a lot less hand labor than using a wire brush, and Fred thinks it sounds reasonable to try to knock...

A lot of times people do see it being done but they don't feel empowered to speak up and condemn or stop the person. It is usually done by someone who is not a long-time hiker who feels insecure and uncomfortable hiking, even with friends, so they spray paint the way they went so they feel safe kno...

[cross-posting my email to Fred] > Does anyone have GPS coordinates for the start of and the end of the spray painted arrows? Usually if we can get GPS, we can bring up Google Earth and plan for trail maintenance as well as spray paint mitigation. I haven't worked out GPS coordinates, but it's on th...

Excellent, thanks, Hikin Jim! The person I spoke with at ANF also mentioned that group. I've been looking at info online about wire brushes. If I'm understanding correctly, the wire brush isn't a whole separate tool, it's just a drill bit attachment that goes in a regular drill. The brushes are fair...

The trail is partly in the San Bernardino National Forest and partly in the Angeles National Forest, but SBNF tells me that ANF manages the whole trail. I talked to the district office in Glendora, and they suggested I talk to an ANF person named Freddie Duncan, basically to make sure that there was...

I tried to learn more about the Icehouse Canyon vandalism. This blog post seems to suggest it happened around 2007-8. This post has photos of what it looked like in 2010. This discussion makes it sounds like it was still there in 2012. I couldn't find any info on who cleaned it up or when. It would ...

The arrows are the product of some idiot hiker. The Icehouse Canyon trail was similarly marked a few years ago with white and orange stripes. Volunteers removed a lot of those tags with electric Dewalt wire brushes, but remnants remain. It's tough to get rid of paint. I would be interested in getti...

I did Baldy last weekend, descending along the Ski Hut trail. I can't remember how long it had been since I'd been there, maybe a month. There are some new metal signs on the summit and in a couple more spots between the summit and the ski hut. In addition to these, along that same segment of the tr...

As for following the Hocumac pipeline, the crossing of upper Manker might be dicey. I've twice scrambled all the way up that canyon to the Backbone. It gets pretty gnarly. Good to know, although I'm not sure what exact area you're referring to. Does it have trees, or is it just a blank scree chute ...

Fascinating stuff -- thanks, Sean and AW! The pipe in photo 4 in the geology article does look very much like my memory of what I saw. It's impressive that they would run a pipe over such a long distance, through such difficult terrain. Where does the ski resort at the notch get its water today? Do ...

I went up Hardwood (Register) Ridge Saturday with my dogs. There was a big pine tree newly fallen along the use trail. Detouring left around the tree, I came across a half-buried pipe that looked old. I'm guessing that it's a remnant of the Hocumac Mine. Anyone have more info? My only knowledge of t...

Sierra Mountaineering Club, smc.club, has some trad climbing outings coming up. We'll be climbing at Tahquitz May 7 and June 25, and we have an into to climbing course (probably too basic for you, but you'd be welcome to come) at Tahquitz on June 11. SCMA also has a course every year, which I hear i...

It might be possible to rig something up near Tahquitz, and go to the summit of that peak. There are also several semi-technical summits near San Jacinto, between that peak and the tram. Cornell and the other peaks named after colleges. Thanks for the suggestions! Hmm...Miller and the "Ivies&q...

I'm a member of the Sierra Mountaineering Club, sierramountaineeringclub.org , which is based in Sacramento but has activities statewide, including here in So Cal, where I live. We have training courses in mountaineering, rock climbing, and snow/ice technique. Our introductory mountaineering course,...

Good point about helmets. If you read an issue of Accidents in North American Mountaineering, one factor you'll see over and over in fatalities is that people weren't wearing a helmet. Another issue that comes through really clearly in Andrew's trip report is the use of some bad heuristics for decis...

The LA Times has some info on what gear people were using, although it's not 100% firm and clear: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html Basically it sounds like people are going out with microspikes and no ice ax, and they're getting in trouble because conditions are unusually icy. ...