EISPIRATEN

Fritz and I went out to do some climbing, and ended up going up Tele's NW Face, which is a nice quick route with more alpine character than the Bowl (hint hint people, and it's got less shit falling down it!).


From Gold Ridge lookout


The Bowl and Manker Canyon (right), melted out.


Downtown LA


Face


Up


Nice








Going




Topout










Familiar names


KOOPA TROOPA!


Going home


It's melted more since we got there.

Nice. Lets hope this next storm drops significant snow.

Fritz and Taco,tacticoool duo not to mess with! Great stuff guys

Couple more pix:

Sunrise heading up the Baldy Notch trail

Ryan scouting out our route

Entering down the Thunder-Telegraph saddle

Heading up

Nice view of Baldy and Thunder en route

Ready for winter to return!

Nicely done guys, makin it look easy.

You're cute with your 2 ice axes - next time I'm out I'm just punching my fists into the ice/snow for purchase, leaving the axe at home. Yeah! Who needs it?!

On a serious note, I think I need to stop volunteering with Big Brother and dump my girl, I'm noticing a serious lack of free time for this kind of activity. Gotta pour on the selfish-sauce.

Burchey wrote: ↑Nicely done guys, makin it look easy.

You're cute with your 2 ice axes - next time I'm out I'm just punching my fists into the ice/snow for purchase, leaving the axe at home. Yeah! Who needs it?!

On a serious note, I think I need to stop volunteering with Big Brother and dump my girl, I'm noticing a serious lack of free time for this kind of activity. Gotta pour on the selfish-sauce.

Keep the axe; dump the gal.

HJ

Good job guys. The snow is really disappearing fast, hopefully we get a good dump out of this next storm.

I like the picture of Fritz topping out, that is great!

Killer TR pics!

At certain angles, it seems like Baldy Wall could be a proper name too... is it really that steep - or is that just an early Heineken illusion?

I got drag out and scan a picture I took of a Baldy summit post --- wow, someone was up there on a summertime overnighter and they were on something much stronger than Nyquil

Super nice photos. Looks like it was a perfect day for you guys!

The register-signing picture shows a truly satisfied fellow. 8)

Outwhere, it's not very steep, but it sure looks like it from certain angles.

Thanks guys.

Great photos. That does look steep!

Thanks Taco, the changing perspectives of the San Gabriel Mountains are always interesting, but this one is up there with the 'most puzzling'.

You'd think the bowl would show it's gentler slope from where the photo was taken but noooooooo.

Last week I was in downtown LA - and it looked like Mt. Wilson was closer than the high rise buildings a block away.

Maybe it's a sign that nature is really in control - because we know it is

Hey outwhere, when viewed head-on, a slope often looks steeper than it really is. This is a common optical illusion. I think it has to do with perspective and foreshortening or quite possibly proprioceptive error due to biased frontal tendencies resulting in distorted retrograde phase correction.

Since I'm a slope enthusiast, I will now supply some FUN facts about slope angles.

- The slope angle in the Bowl is somewhere around 35-40°.
- I've measured quite a few local snow slopes and most tend to be around 40­°. Anything steeper tends to go on for only a short distance. I'd really like to find a 60° slope someday.
- An avalanche can generally happen on slopes ranging from 30-50° but the optimal angle is 35-45°. A lot of slab avalanches happen at 37-38°.
- Most building codes limit stairs to a slope angle of 20-38°.
- The "grade" of a slope in percent is the rise divided by the run (x100).
- So a 45° slope has a grade of 100%.
- The steepest roads in the world have a grade of around 32-35% (~18°).
- Most hikers consider a vertical gain of 1000 ft per mile to be pretty steep. But this is only equal to a slope angle of 10° or a grade of 18%.
- A 40° snow slope is equal to a gain of 4430 ft per mile!
- Most steep mountain slopes (other than rock faces) end up being around 35-45° because of the angle of repose. This is the angle where stuff will pile up and not slide down.
- The windows keystroke for degrees is alt+0176.

Some other interesting facts about slopes: We're good at math, and tend to eat a lot of rice.