We arrived at the trailhead to find total White Out conditions - a guy and his girlfriend came down just as we were starting up at 2:10 PM, they indicated that they were the first ones there at 4:50 AM and had cut tracks all the way to the summit but could not see anything more than 20 feet in front of their faces the whole day - we thanked them for their efforts & headed up. At the gate we ran into another female solo hiker who confirmed that the couple had done most of the work but she piggyback on their boot straps and it was her first time up the bowl so she was greatful to them for allowing her to follow and join in on the fun.
At least 30 to 40 people had collectively stomped down the the snow all the way to the Ski Hut, only about 10 hardy souls made it all the way. At the Ski Hut we found two couples were cooking dinner waiting for more friends from San Diego to show up and have dinner before they headed up in the morning. We warmed up for 45 minutes then downed our warner gear and hit the bowl.
The White-Out Conditions continued, so it was "follow tracks" your trust day, soon we ran across three guys coming down that sternly warned us about going up in the mist and one of them was quite worried about us coming down in the dark, we thanked him for his concern but I knew we'd be down to the hut before it got to dark.
The snow was in great shape, best I've seen in the past 6 months, just wet enought to firm up on most steps, and it was fairly easy to follow the route that the couple in the parking lot had told me about. At one point the snow was softer than I like so I stepped to the left into someone glissade track and that had firmed up even better so I was able to kick steps all the way up the face from there. At 9,700 feet the wind was moving the tail end of the upper part of the storm out and we could just begin to make out the ridge line of the upper bowl. Within 50 feet of the top of the bowl our hunch paid off, it was blue skies and perfectly clear.
We topped out and began taking multiple pictures of the winter we had been cheated of. Five minutes laer we started up the last three hundred feet of elevation, the wind was pounding us with Spindrift the whole time, but it was well worth it. We reached the summit within 20+ minutes, stayed for 15 taking pictures then got the hell out of there.
We stopped at the top of the bowl where we had topped out earlier just to get some food and liquids in us before heading down. We glissaded for 6 - 7 hundred feet before it became even more like split pea soup - visibility was less then 15 feet, so we opted to plunge step the rest of the way. We made the Ski Hut in 20 minutes flat at about 7:30 PM, by this time they had the full dinner cooked and offered to feed us. Ty ate some of their good "Jambalaya" while I enjoyed a great cup of Tea and took some of the food home to eat later. At 8:15ish we headed down and on the way back ran into 8 nice Korean folks headed up to camp in the mist somewhere near the hut or bowl they were not sure which they were going to do.
I'm guessing that if anyone went up today later than 8 AM it was hot and slushy but a beautiful day.
This is the view from the summit looking out over the clouds at Mount Baden Powell just peaking through the clouds.
Ty as he reaches the top of the bowl, the sun is shinning so bright in his face he can barely keep from closing his eyes.
Sometimes you get lucky and the ski is so blue & the trees are completely covered in snow that the pictures come out nice.
Top of the bowl looking north.
Almost to the summit, shadows are getting longer and longer - San Gorgonio Mountain is in the back left just above the clouds.
Ty paying hommage to the "Cold As a Witches Tit" almost frostbitten fingers as he blows warm air into his gloves to warm up his hands
(I absolutly hate the fact that when I load pictures in "Photobucket" and it scrambles the order in which I put them in, regardless of that the rest of the pictures are below)
Rest of Pictures Here
Great Day, Great Fun, thank you "Mother Nature" for finally giving us something to work with
