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Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 7:08 pm
by lilbitmo
Knowing that the storm would break sometime late in the afternoon on Saturday Ty and I decided to run up Manker Trail, then the bowl and then to the summit.

We arrived at the trailhead to find total White Out conditions - a guy and his girlfriend came down just as we were starting up at 2:10 PM, they indicated that they were the first ones there at 4:50 AM and had cut tracks all the way to the summit but could not see anything more than 20 feet in front of their faces the whole day - we thanked them for their efforts & headed up. At the gate we ran into another female solo hiker who confirmed that the couple had done most of the work but she piggyback on their boot straps and it was her first time up the bowl so she was greatful to them for allowing her to follow and join in on the fun.

At least 30 to 40 people had collectively stomped down the the snow all the way to the Ski Hut, only about 10 hardy souls made it all the way. At the Ski Hut we found two couples were cooking dinner waiting for more friends from San Diego to show up and have dinner before they headed up in the morning. We warmed up for 45 minutes then downed our warner gear and hit the bowl.

The White-Out Conditions continued, so it was "follow tracks" your trust day, soon we ran across three guys coming down that sternly warned us about going up in the mist and one of them was quite worried about us coming down in the dark, we thanked him for his concern but I knew we'd be down to the hut before it got to dark.

The snow was in great shape, best I've seen in the past 6 months, just wet enought to firm up on most steps, and it was fairly easy to follow the route that the couple in the parking lot had told me about. At one point the snow was softer than I like so I stepped to the left into someone glissade track and that had firmed up even better so I was able to kick steps all the way up the face from there. At 9,700 feet the wind was moving the tail end of the upper part of the storm out and we could just begin to make out the ridge line of the upper bowl. Within 50 feet of the top of the bowl our hunch paid off, it was blue skies and perfectly clear.

We topped out and began taking multiple pictures of the winter we had been cheated of. Five minutes laer we started up the last three hundred feet of elevation, the wind was pounding us with Spindrift the whole time, but it was well worth it. We reached the summit within 20+ minutes, stayed for 15 taking pictures then got the hell out of there.

We stopped at the top of the bowl where we had topped out earlier just to get some food and liquids in us before heading down. We glissaded for 6 - 7 hundred feet before it became even more like split pea soup - visibility was less then 15 feet, so we opted to plunge step the rest of the way. We made the Ski Hut in 20 minutes flat at about 7:30 PM, by this time they had the full dinner cooked and offered to feed us. Ty ate some of their good "Jambalaya" while I enjoyed a great cup of Tea and took some of the food home to eat later. At 8:15ish we headed down and on the way back ran into 8 nice Korean folks headed up to camp in the mist somewhere near the hut or bowl they were not sure which they were going to do.

I'm guessing that if anyone went up today later than 8 AM it was hot and slushy but a beautiful day.

This is the view from the summit looking out over the clouds at Mount Baden Powell just peaking through the clouds.
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Ty as he reaches the top of the bowl, the sun is shinning so bright in his face he can barely keep from closing his eyes.
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Sometimes you get lucky and the ski is so blue & the trees are completely covered in snow that the pictures come out nice.
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Top of the bowl looking north.
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Almost to the summit, shadows are getting longer and longer - San Gorgonio Mountain is in the back left just above the clouds.
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Ty paying hommage to the "Cold As a Witches Tit" almost frostbitten fingers as he blows warm air into his gloves to warm up his hands
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(I absolutly hate the fact that when I load pictures in "Photobucket" and it scrambles the order in which I put them in, regardless of that the rest of the pictures are below)

Rest of Pictures Here

Great Day, Great Fun, thank you "Mother Nature" for finally giving us something to work with :D :D :D

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:24 pm
by asbufra
Patrick and Ty, it was great to see you. Awesome pictures. It was a beautiful day wasn't it?

We started up the bowl behind the couple you mentioned, then traversed right and went up the right side of the bowl. Lots of deep snow over there that will be better for travel if it consolidates. On the way down, in the lower bowl, the mist was as thick as I have seen, at times we couldn't follow the footprints in the snow at our feet.

Last year there were scores of people in the snow filled Baldy bowl on a Saturday afternoon, this Saturday we saw about 5.

Except for the mist, conditions were ok for a winter clinic, but it is likely to get slushy by next weekend.

Winter in April....

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2012 8:51 pm
by tonyg
Beautiful pictures Patrick - We (two of us) went up the Bowl today (Sunday), and saw your name in the book at the register box. I found the conditions to be very nice, and the weather was perfect. The trees were covered in rime most of the day. We only saw about 10 people total on the Bowl. We were able to glissade all the way down to the trail right before the ski hut!

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 8:12 pm
by Hikin_Jim
Wow!

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HJ

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 9:38 pm
by jmac
Amazing! Thanks for sharing. I'm really sad I missed a day like this up there. It had to have been the best day up there since last winter. Oh well, there's always next winter. I almost ditched my sons baseball game to head up, but decided to go and take them for some snow-play in San Gorgonio on Sunday instead. Thanks again. :D

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:15 pm
by Burchey
Great pictures senor.

On the flip side, I hate both of you, especially Ty even though I never met him.

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2012 12:21 am
by lilbitmo
Burchey wrote: Great pictures senor.

On the flip side, I hate both of you, especially Ty even though I never met him.
You never met me either, so keep the "hate equal" please :wink: :D

Doing a midnight run tomorrow night on San G, welcome to join the partah my friend?

Re: Baldy Bowl 20120414

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:01 pm
by Burchey
lilbitmo wrote:
Burchey wrote: Great pictures senor.

On the flip side, I hate both of you, especially Ty even though I never met him.
You never met me either, so keep the "hate equal" please :wink: :D

Doing a midnight run tomorrow night on San G, welcome to join the partah my friend?
Yeah Gittem!

Not in person, young Patrick, but our hearts have met in the Cosmos.

Or something.

EDIT: just saw your invite, was already booked up, looks like you guys made it like champions though. next time...