EISPIRATEN

Before it all melts away I am hoping to take a day off on Thursday Jan-28 to attempt Baldy Summit. If anyone is interested -- please let me know.

Trust me, you have a long time prior to it all melting away. 8)

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 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

jimqpublic wrote:do you think Baldy would be more of a snowshoe or crampon climb? I'm considering either Thursday or Saturday.

Get yourself some Verts for climbing the bowl in these conditions ..

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.

TacoDelRio wrote:Trust me, you have a long time prior to it all melting away. 8)

Yeah but the rime ice covered trees make it all a little more special and it's not going to last much longer 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.

True that.

What time are you heading up Vitaliy?

Dave, I was thinking to be at Manker by 6:00am or maybe 6:30am would that work for you?

That sounds good. Let me see how the week goes. I'm taking the kids up there for snowplay on Friday and then an overnight on San G--plus I gotta get some work squeezed in there too!

TacoDelRio wrote:True that.

If you are up to it -- I can pick you up at the place of your choosing -- just let me know.

Dave G wrote:That sounds good. Let me see how the week goes. I'm taking the kids up there for snowplay on Friday and then an overnight on San G--plus I gotta get some work squeezed in there too!

Sounds good!

Sorry -- something came-up at work and I wont be able to make it tomorrow. Hopefully next week!

I might give Lightning Couloir a shot tomorrow.

Ok dude -- be careful and lets go next week -- I am already tired from the day-to-day grind and need a breath of fresh air badly.

Amen.