Photo Climb/Trek up to Mt Baldy - Feb 04 2010
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 11:28 pm
It's been a while since I've made it up to Baldy Summit so when an opportunity came along to take a day off from work I jumped right on it. I checked the weather forecast and it looked promising -- Sunny with nice, puffy cloud cover -- just what I enjoy the most. I also started to wonder ... what if I make it a Photo Trek/Climb and bring the big guns -- full frame camera with the 14mm wide angle lens? Problem is, it weighs a lot -- camera = 43.7 oz, lens = 35.3 oz; 79 oz total 
Not something you'd want hanging off your neck climbing Baldy, but that's where it has to be for me if I want to take the shoots instead of thinking how to take the camera out of the pack.
I mounted the lens on the camera, picked it up and almost gave up on the idea, almost ... Then I remembered that I recently bought a new camera case for it and if I could rig it up to my pack where the weight is split 50/50 between the shoulders and hip it might be doable. Of course it still doesn't relieve my knees from the added weight of it all but a little suffering goes a long way
Here's the finished rig:
I used a self equalizing system for the hip-belt connection and a static length straps for the shoulder straps. All was done using a double runner and 4 biners. It comes on and off very easily and is the most comfortable rig I've used so far. It also proved to be easy to work with in the field:
I got to Manker at 6:35 and was sliding all over the fire-road at 7:00am. As was reported by simonov it's a deadly stretch of icy road now that it's been plowed.
I got my first photo opportunity at the fire-road bend (notice the nice cloud cover moving in ...):
I was at the Ski Hut area by 9am (photo treks are slow):
The day was turning out to be just perfect -- blue sky with nice clouds:
To save on time I went directly for the Bowl without stopping at the Ski Hut. The Bowl was still looking a little cold and not very vibrant:
When doing extreme wide angle photography it's best to be right smack in the face of the subject -- just jam the lens into it. As you can imagine it's a bit of a challenge to do that with the baldy Bowl -- no matter how high I climbed it was not close enough:
I was getting two thirds of the way up when I realized that this is not going to work:
I'd have to climb into the chute and shoot from there, but I promised my family I wouldn't attempt it solo so I decided to traverse across the Bowl onto the ridge of the regular trail, go for the Summit and see what I can shoot up there ...
I was quickly traversing the Bowl and I could see the exit route real close:
In fact I though I'd be out of it in 5-10 minutes max when I found myself on this slope:
The next thing I knew it was as if someone pulled the rug from under my feet, the snow pack moved, I slid, self belay and froze …. immediately the scene of swimming in avalanche debris and ending at the bottom of the bowl started playing in my mind — it send a cold chill down my spine. I was afraid to move, I looked down, up, back and realized that the closest exit is to return the same way I came, I slowly turned around and tried to put my feet into my own tracks — they wouldn’t hold, the whole slope felt so loose it felt as if my steps would send it tumbling down. I dropped few feet down and carefully made new track — it was only 50 feet to safety but it felt as an eternity ... as soon as my crampons bit into the solid snow pack I breathed a sign of relieve
Looking around where I was it became apparent that the safest and fastest way up would be to traverse towards DBB and find a moderate slope up the summit from there. This time I paid especially close attention to the snow pack -- thankfully it was in great shape. I found a nice direct route up and took it. Surprisingly it got pretty steep towards the end -- the Bowl is very deceiving:
The weather was just amazing:
I am at DBB level now:
The route:
I topped out at 11:15 -- views from the Summit:
It was very cold and windy -- the snow cave came in very handy:
I ate a quick lunch:
... packed up and headed down using the regular trail. Taking in the scenery as I went:
As I reached the bottom of the ridge I found myself in a pretty cool cloud/whiteout:
The regular trail doesn't get much use I gather -- I was up to my knee most of the time:
It was a bit a of a challenge finding the Ski Hut in the cloud, but after that it was pretty easy. When I reached the end of the trail the clouds passed:
The snowplow is back at it:
He cut a really deep track probably 9ft high in one place:
It was an awesome day!
Not something you'd want hanging off your neck climbing Baldy, but that's where it has to be for me if I want to take the shoots instead of thinking how to take the camera out of the pack.I mounted the lens on the camera, picked it up and almost gave up on the idea, almost ... Then I remembered that I recently bought a new camera case for it and if I could rig it up to my pack where the weight is split 50/50 between the shoulders and hip it might be doable. Of course it still doesn't relieve my knees from the added weight of it all but a little suffering goes a long way
Here's the finished rig:
I used a self equalizing system for the hip-belt connection and a static length straps for the shoulder straps. All was done using a double runner and 4 biners. It comes on and off very easily and is the most comfortable rig I've used so far. It also proved to be easy to work with in the field:
I got to Manker at 6:35 and was sliding all over the fire-road at 7:00am. As was reported by simonov it's a deadly stretch of icy road now that it's been plowed.
I got my first photo opportunity at the fire-road bend (notice the nice cloud cover moving in ...):
I was at the Ski Hut area by 9am (photo treks are slow):
The day was turning out to be just perfect -- blue sky with nice clouds:
To save on time I went directly for the Bowl without stopping at the Ski Hut. The Bowl was still looking a little cold and not very vibrant:
When doing extreme wide angle photography it's best to be right smack in the face of the subject -- just jam the lens into it. As you can imagine it's a bit of a challenge to do that with the baldy Bowl -- no matter how high I climbed it was not close enough:
I was getting two thirds of the way up when I realized that this is not going to work:
I'd have to climb into the chute and shoot from there, but I promised my family I wouldn't attempt it solo so I decided to traverse across the Bowl onto the ridge of the regular trail, go for the Summit and see what I can shoot up there ...
I was quickly traversing the Bowl and I could see the exit route real close:
In fact I though I'd be out of it in 5-10 minutes max when I found myself on this slope:
The next thing I knew it was as if someone pulled the rug from under my feet, the snow pack moved, I slid, self belay and froze …. immediately the scene of swimming in avalanche debris and ending at the bottom of the bowl started playing in my mind — it send a cold chill down my spine. I was afraid to move, I looked down, up, back and realized that the closest exit is to return the same way I came, I slowly turned around and tried to put my feet into my own tracks — they wouldn’t hold, the whole slope felt so loose it felt as if my steps would send it tumbling down. I dropped few feet down and carefully made new track — it was only 50 feet to safety but it felt as an eternity ... as soon as my crampons bit into the solid snow pack I breathed a sign of relieve
Looking around where I was it became apparent that the safest and fastest way up would be to traverse towards DBB and find a moderate slope up the summit from there. This time I paid especially close attention to the snow pack -- thankfully it was in great shape. I found a nice direct route up and took it. Surprisingly it got pretty steep towards the end -- the Bowl is very deceiving:
The weather was just amazing:
I am at DBB level now:
The route:
I topped out at 11:15 -- views from the Summit:
It was very cold and windy -- the snow cave came in very handy:
I ate a quick lunch:
... packed up and headed down using the regular trail. Taking in the scenery as I went:
As I reached the bottom of the ridge I found myself in a pretty cool cloud/whiteout:
The regular trail doesn't get much use I gather -- I was up to my knee most of the time:
It was a bit a of a challenge finding the Ski Hut in the cloud, but after that it was pretty easy. When I reached the end of the trail the clouds passed:
The snowplow is back at it:
He cut a really deep track probably 9ft high in one place:
It was an awesome day!
But props on a great day and truly amazing pics. I am going to forward it to my climbing partner from Friday as this was his first Baldy trip and we didn't get to see much