EISPIRATEN

Hi all- this is my first post here.

Santa brought snowshoes for my wife and daughter; my son and I already had shoes. The girl is 9 and son is (almost) 7 and have each been snowshoeing a couple times. They are also good, surefooted hikers having done a 5 day trip last summer in Yosemite where we covered up to 9 miles per day. Two weeks ago we hiked a couple miles up Icehouse Canyon and plan to repeat that trip with more snow.

I'm looking for snowshoe routes for day trips from Long Beach. I think the kids would be good for 2-5 miles round trip. Somewhat challenging terrain is okay, but no dangerous runouts or avalanche hazards please! It would be nice to snowshoe in to a good spot for sledding and snow play away from the roadside crowds.

Thanks for your responses.

The best area that I know of for easy access is the San Jacinto State Park area at the top of the Palm Springs Tram, there's plenty of not so technical snow shoeing to be done up there, the only problem right now is that the snow is there now (as in most places right now) has already consolidated to the point that snow shoes are not needed, once we get another foot or two or so that area is real fun for doing that. You get off the tram and you are in the snow, otherwise you have to hike in a ways in most other areas before you can begin unless we get more snow at lower elevations.

Tram info here - http://www.pstramway.com/index.asp

State Park Map link here - http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/636/files ... oSPmap.pdf

Enjoy

Another good one is the South Fork of San Gorgonio. It's a bit closer than Palm Springs. Start at the Jenks Lake parking lot and you can hike in about a mile or so to Horseshoe Meadows for a 2-mile round-trip, or go 2.5 miles to the San Gorgonio Wilderness Boundary marker for a 5-mile day. Like Patrick said, you should probably wait for some new snow for maximum fun. Not sure about sledding though.

Thanks for those two suggestions. I'll wait for great conditions before plunking down $80 for San Jacinto.

Jenks Lake sounds good. We're planning on camping at Barton Flats in our popup trailer sometime this winter since it's now open year-round. I want to wait until there's good snow but chains aren't required since we would have to chain up the car and the trailer by the rules (even with AWD).

Two freebies (except for gas):

Mt. Pinos
Angeles Crest HWY from Islip towards Dawson Saddle. (Normal road closure)

Easy grades, relatively high altitude, great vistas, and generally avy free!

I second the Mt Pinos vote. I was just up there for the first time last week and its great. Nice trail (a service road actually), gentle grade up to the summit, plenty of wide open spaces to tromp around in and spectacular views once you're on top make it very rewarding for everyone. I think stated mileage is about 4 RT, but it really doesn't seem that far. And if the kids get tuckered out, you can always just hang around the parking area for some sledding. I'm already scheming on how to get my family up there for some snowshoe play. I wish Santa had brought my family the same.

I couldn't wait for the good snow... Here's a little trip report.

Since the kids (Melissa-9 and Jason-6) had Monday off school for Martin Luther King Day, I planned a camping trip for the long weekend with our Chalet folding camp trailer.

I was hoping for snow but unfortunately the three spots on my radar for snow camping with the trailer were dry. That left another recent favorite- Joshua Tree, with a side trip planned up Mt. San Jacinto's cable tram.

After hiking around Joshua Tree on Saturday, Sunday we headed to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. Palm Springs is only a few hundred feet elevation. The tram base is a couple steep road miles up the hill at 2600 feet. The tram summit is 8600 feet! It seemed crazy to be carrying parkas and snowshoes to the lower tram dock in the low desert.

11 minutes later though it was all snow. Unfortunately hard, icy snow. We started hiking to the Round Valley camping area about 2 miles from the upper tram dock. Crowds of flip-flop clad tourists quickly faded and it was rather peaceful. There were only a few spots where the snow was soft enough to need snowshoes for flotation. As the route got steeper though we decided to put the shoes on for the traction of the metal cleats.

All of my snowshoeing has been in the Sierra, generally in deep, soft snow. This hardpack was new to me and I was amazed how effective the cleats were on my Atlas shoes. Wife and 9 year old daughter have new Tubbs shoes courtesy of Santa and they did great as well. Unfortunately 6 year old Jason wasn't so lucky. His Little Bear Grizzly snowshoes are a great piece of equpment for kids. Simple, light, inexpensive but with decent features for soft snow and flat ground. No chance of a kid hurting himself or others with sharp edges since there are none. He did his best to stomp the plastic edges into the hard snow, but eventually took them off and trusted lug soles. The boy is surefooted as a bighorn sheep and managed traction much better than I could have. Of course he's so light at 55 pounds that gravity hardly knows he's there. The hike was a lot of fun and all four of us had a good time.

A few gear mistakes showed up- daughter had worn a cotton T-shirt instead of the Icebreaker merino shirt I had packed for her, and her wind shell turned out to be a pretty good vapor barrier. She did fine in her fleece jacket though. Each of us also had a fall-back warm coat that never left the pack. My main packing failure was in not bringing enough food. We had planned to have an early lunch at the upper tram dock restaurant, but the line and unappetizing fare caused us to skip lunch. Our hike was cut just a hair short when we ate our last cookies and headed back.

Jason won't be left out next time the snow is icy. I just ordered a pair of MSR Swift youth snowshoes for him. They look like the real deal, not kids toys.

Jim

jim q p,
glad you all had a good time! some of my favorite memories from childhood are the days we spent sledding in the snow at Mt. Pinos each year. we started on cardboard boxes and graduated to the killer steel sleds they rent in Frazier Park. one year they had snowmobiles to rent up there. my poor dad flipped it on it's side with the 4 of us on. my mom was scared, my sister and i thought it was fun! decades later i made the pilgrimage to Mt. Pinos to take my daughters up there for snow play too.

fun times! as a parent, it's priceless to have those adventures and make those memories.

Great TR! Sounds like you have a future mountaineer or two in your midst!

PS-My wife loves the look of the Chalet camping trailers. How do you like yours?

Chalet trailer is a study in compromise. It usually comes out ahead as long as we remember it's a lot bigger than a backpack tent and a lot easier to tow than a mega RV.

On to the snow. 9 year old daughter and I set out from Manker Flat yesterday at about 10:00. We only made it a mile up Falls Rd. to the Ski Hut turnoff but had a great time playing in the snow. I took her down some slopes that though short were almost enough to scare me!

Even though the snow was mostly soft, I saw many people carrying or wearing crampons. There was a Korean group doing self-arrest practice near the waterfall.

Most of my experience is from the Eastern Sierra where I seldom found the need for crampons, and seldom had any pre-broken trail to follow. Obviously different here. I'm thinking about what conditions are appropriate for kids. Once crampons become useful is that an indication that it's too steep and icy for children?

So for me to upgrade to new crampons means that I'm either deciding to spend solo recreation time away from the family, or that we're preparing to buy 4 new pair of crampons and 3 ice axes! (Already bought three pair of snowshoes in the past month!) Then, if it's steep and/or long runout does that mean roped travel?

Obviously easier to just buy the kids a Wii.

Snowshoe days in the San Gabriels are generally few and far between (current conditions notwithstanding ). Because of the relatively high daytime temps, the snow consolidates quickly and then you deal with hard/icy conditions in the morning and slush in the afternoon until it all melts out. So crampons and ice axe are what you'll be using locally in the winter.

I haven't started my boys (ages 9 & 11) on much of any winter mountaineering yet, mainly because their mom thinks I won't bring them back intact. So we just sled/snowplay when there's snow, hike when there isn't, and I go off and do my winter treks without them. Seems like a pretty good system to me. 8)