Baldy on Thursday Jan-28-2010
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jimqpublic
- Posts: 58
- Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:05 am
Presuming we get a bit more snow tomorrow with a 6500' floor- Based on your experience yesterday do you think Baldy would be more of a snowshoe or crampon climb? I'm considering either Thursday or Saturday.
I ask because my crampons are 20+ years old and wouldn't work well on any of my current boots. My Atlas snowshoes are pretty compact (25") and have steel toe and heel teeth.
MVE- After seeing your photos I realize that my daughter and I saw you yesterday as you came down onto Falls Rd. from the Ski Hut trail as you did a couple big postholes.
I ask because my crampons are 20+ years old and wouldn't work well on any of my current boots. My Atlas snowshoes are pretty compact (25") and have steel toe and heel teeth.
MVE- After seeing your photos I realize that my daughter and I saw you yesterday as you came down onto Falls Rd. from the Ski Hut trail as you did a couple big postholes.
I remember now -- you had a nice picnic going there right? What a small world!
If conditions don't change much from yesterday, you could get up to Ski Hut using snowshoes alone (saw few people doing it yesterday) but the bowl -- I don't know ... it's very steep. Using the regular trail (up and over the ridge) is probably doable especially if you have ascent type snowshoes (with the heel lever). Yesterday, most people who had both crampons and snowshoes ended up using crampons.
The other thing to consider is this -- to hit the summit you'd have to start early (6am) and the trail is packed down pretty well from the day before so there's a lot of hard icy surfaces where I'd rather use crampons than snowshoes, but that's just me -- I tend to err on the safe side. Last time we went up Baldy as a group -- I was the first one to pull my crampons out so take my words with a grain of salt
If conditions don't change much from yesterday, you could get up to Ski Hut using snowshoes alone (saw few people doing it yesterday) but the bowl -- I don't know ... it's very steep. Using the regular trail (up and over the ridge) is probably doable especially if you have ascent type snowshoes (with the heel lever). Yesterday, most people who had both crampons and snowshoes ended up using crampons.
The other thing to consider is this -- to hit the summit you'd have to start early (6am) and the trail is packed down pretty well from the day before so there's a lot of hard icy surfaces where I'd rather use crampons than snowshoes, but that's just me -- I tend to err on the safe side. Last time we went up Baldy as a group -- I was the first one to pull my crampons out so take my words with a grain of salt
Get yourself some Verts for climbing the bowl in these conditions ..jimqpublic wrote:do you think Baldy would be more of a snowshoe or crampon climb? I'm considering either Thursday or Saturday.
Otherwise the DBB is doable in crampons because the ridge is mostly windswept and iced over.
The buried Manzanitas will prove to be challenging as will the occasional deep spots.
Yeah but the rime ice covered trees make it all a little more special and it's not going to last much longerTacoDelRio wrote:Trust me, you have a long time prior to it all melting away. 8)
How often do we get this here in LA?I was born and lived for 10 years in a very cold place even by Russian standards (snow in late September through May, -27C typical with -50C days) but I don't remember such an amazing landscape -- it's just different here in the Alpine after the storms.
If you are up to it -- I can pick you up at the place of your choosing -- just let me know.TacoDelRio wrote:True that.