The National Weather Service websites predict up to 95-100 winds for the San Gorgonio and San Jacinto range. I will not be hiking in either range tomorrow (Sunday Jan 11). I had initially planned to do the San Bernardino trail.
Baldy looks much calmer. We'll get up early and take a look at the NWS website and decide whether or not to drive to Baldy Village to hike the Bear Canyon trail.
Back in Jan 2007, we encountered severe winds (75 mph +) which blew us (Lance and I) back down the exposed switchback at 8,200 ft. This is the first time I've ever been airbone going uphill on a trail and I didn't like it. We'll turn around if similar conditions exist tomorrow.
I was amazed to see the chance for 90-100 mph winds for San J and San G. The gust that blew Lance and I into the air and back down the switchback was ~70 mph.
Ze's video was the bad omen. Started at 6:50 AM. Ran into the same extreme gusting wind at the exposed switchback at ~7,200 as two years ago. This time we were able to work our way up by crouching. From that point on, we alternated between moving slowly and dropping down when the gusts got really bad. Shortly after the switchback, we ran into a guy on his way down -- he'd left 20 minutes before us. He said he got to an area on the ridge where he couldn't stand up. When we got there, it was very clear that was where he had turned around. I was almost on my hands and knees to negotiate that part -- we called it a day. I'm guessing this was at about the 7800 ft level. There wasn't much snow up to that elevation. We warned a few more people on the way down.
