EISPIRATEN

Patrick, Phil and I hiked up Shortcut Ridge from Icehouse Canyon. Just below the Ontario-Bighorn Ridge we traversed east, above Kelly's Camp, over to Bighorn Saddle. Then it was up and over Bighorn Peak, down to Icehouse Saddle and back through the canyon via the winter route. The storm from the previous day had dumped about a foot of fresh snow which was melting fast under sunny skies at the lower elevations. Another great day in the mountains with good company!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21042415@N ... 537428840/

Thanks again Dave and Phil for showing me the route up Shortcut Ridge to Bighorn, had a great day, got my face slightly fried from all the sunshine.

"augering up" that ridge is a great description for what we did to get to the upper ridge

My pictures are here - think I will have to change the "ISO" setting on my point and shoot so that the snow shows up better, anyone with suggestions for that, please advise - - http://s908.photobucket.com/home/Charli ... =slideshow

Great photos Dave and Patrick! What a beautiful day up there... my favorite colors, blue & white! Man, that snow was so deep it swallowed up your snowshoes, huh? Nothing like postholing to burn calories faster than you can ingest them!

You know, i think i saw LD on Bighorn and Timber last weekend. did he mention if he was there last week? hmm?...

norma r wrote:Man, that snow was so deep it swallowed up your snowshoes, huh? Nothing like postholing to burn calories faster than you can ingest them!

Actually, the only place where snowshoes could have been useful would have been on the traverse above Kelly's and thankfully, that was fairly short. The combination of the fresh clumpy powder and the slope angle on Shortcut Ridge made it much safer to just boot it up. I trust we all found a way to replace those those lost calories in short order.

Nice pix Dave and Patrick. Did you hit a ladybug storm or have they not yet started flying? I think I ran into something like a ladybug swarm last spring over at Gorgonio. Just curious, because this is all somewhat new to me.

"Auguring"? Now that's a descriptive term!
But with all that snow, at least you weren't sliding on the loose scree...

TracieB wrote:Nice pix Dave and Patrick. Did you hit a ladybug storm or have they not yet started flying? I think I ran into something like a ladybug swarm last spring over at Gorgonio. Just curious, because this is all somewhat new to me.

Tracie, I came down Bear Flat trail from the summit of Baldy one time in the late spring and it was a swarm (like right out of a movie) of lady bugs right by the houses at the end of the canyon.

The ones we encountered were on the far side of the creek when Dave was pointing out the entrance to Falling Rock Canyon. There were at least ten to twenty piles just like the ones in the picture, I'm sure there are many, many more. It would be great to have a stop motion camera going when they do take to flight, what a sight that would be