Since Steve titled his TR Ontario Peak and Disneyland and I have chosen to go with the flow and call my WebAlbum, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride!
Hiking with Steve and Fernando was nothing short of a wild ride into the beautiful San Gab's. If the French philosopher Pascal is correct, “That a man's true nature lies in motion, without which we die.” It can be believed that Fernando will live forever!
Trying to take advantage of firm snow in the early a.m. hours Steve, Fernando and I got off to an alpine start by 6am. Unfortunately, Mark had forgotten to set his clock forward and when he still had not arrived by 6am we were off. Hiking Falling Rock Canyon is a pleasure in daylight but for me, trying to locate it and hiking up it in darkness proved “interesting.” When we reached the first waterfall I thought it looked as if we could just go around by climbing the rocks to the left. Unknowingly, I was taking the boys up the Sam Page named Falling Fir Ridge. It was Class3 rock from the get-go and we already had crampons on so we used the steel to our advantage climbing the rock. At one point, Steve took a look over the ridge toward FRC and determined it not climbable and it was at least an hour of continuing up before I found a spot where we could descend. I was feeling guilty for taking the guys off-route, but they thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of climbing Class3 with little light. After making our way over the ridge, we first crossed a snow slope that Dave G said was probably the beginning of Fir Draw and continued a downhill traverse until we entered FRC. It was no time until we saw the slope that leads to the Sugarloaf Saddle and up we went. Fernando got so far ahead that we saw him waiting up near the saddle for us, so I yelled out “Why don't you glissade down and practice self-arrest?” He did and flew by us and ended up climbing the slope a second time and beating us up again! Dang, I would like a tenth of his energy.
We tagged Sugarloaf and then headed back to the saddle and up the ridge to Ontario. As we ascended the ridge, Steve saw a hiker ahead and we caught up to Mark, who had arrived at the TH at 6:30am and hiked FRC thinking he was trailing us. After introductions, we all continued on and since it was the guys first time up there they were blown away by the vastness of the Ontario bowl and the unique view of the forest of snags standing tall in the blanket of white.
On the summit we enjoyed Fernando's nimble climb of the summit tree with his crampons on and lunch with a view of the SG Valley. We opted to traverse the ridge east toward Bighorn glissading as the slopes allowed and stood in disbelief at Fernando's death-defying Helmet Glissade. We descended via a gulley short of the Icehouse Cyn Saddle and had a pleasant walk back to the cars.
This was my first time hiking with Steve, Fern and Mark and we had a great time together and I thank you Tina for loaning out “your boys” to me.

You guys ROCK!
my pix are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.norma8 ... dRide31410#