Sierra Madre is a great team. One of the guys here at my office is on SM SAR. You have to live within a 20 min. drive of the station in order to be a member.
My first exposure to ice was on the north ridge trail on Pine Mtn in the month before your father set out. My intent was to go up the Acorn trail all the way to Baldy. I didn't get far before ice presented a problem. At the time I was inexperienced with winter travel and hadn't yet purchased crampons. I did however have an ice axe (which I had never used). Foolishly I cut steps in the ice and proceeded up the steepest and exposed part of the ridge without crampons. Needless to say climbing back down steep ice using only the small steps I had cut was sketchy. When the deaths began just weeks later I realized I may have been lucky. Soon thereafter I purchased my first set of crampons.
Rick Kent wrote:My first exposure to ice was . . .
My first exposure to ice was last December on the Bear Canyon Trail. At 9200' I looked at the ice, looked at the chutes, turned around, and treated myself to a burger in Baldy Village. Smartest thing I did all year.
Learned the hard way. Self arrest, slid from near the summit of Thunder, down to the bottom ski lift on Thunder, about 1/4 mile. Damn rucksack. It's all his fault.
Glad you're still with us.