3/13/11 After a successful exploratory trip a month earlier, it was time to summit Mt. San Gorgonio by myself in the snow. About 17 miles and over 6000' of gain up the Vivian Creek trail with some amazing views from the top.
1 Start of the trail and definitely more snow here than last time. It was exactly a month since my last trip here. Hopefully the lessons learned from last time will help me make it to the top today. I hit the trail about 7:30am, which is about 1/2 hour later than I had hoped. I had planned to send my customary iteneray txt messages from the Mentone ranger station (the last spot with cell coverage) but forgot. I was well on the way up to Forest Falls when I remembered and turned around and drove back to send the txt because I didn't want to have to be worrying about it all day.
2 Crossing Mill Creek in the morning. No problem. Well naturally I go to hop onto one of those darker rocks, and it's covered in black ice. Kerplunk! I slip off and dunk my leg up to my knee in the freezing creek and flood my boot. Not the best way to start the trek.
3 Top of the switchbacks and into the valley at Vivan Creek camp. One of the more picturesque spots in Southern CA. Unfortunately, I'm still without my normal camera and have to use the iPhone again.
4 Definitely more snow than a month ago.
5 Coming up to the first creek crossing.
6 Definitely one of my favorite spots in Southern CA.
7 A better pic this time of one of my favorite spots along Vivian Creek.
8 Making it my up towards Halfway Camp.
9 Made it back up to the rugged alpine terrain above Halfway Camp. This time, I managed to avoid the detours on the way to High Creek and probably saved at least an hour of time.
10 High Creek camp. Comparing pics, the snow is at least 1-2 feet deeper than last time I was here.
11 Headed up the valley to the ridge above High Creek. I'm still not exactly sure what the real trail here looks like. I know there are a few long switchbacks, but in the snow, it's pretty much straight-up. I try to take more of a switchbacking route this time, but it's still a brutal section of trail. About 800' gain in around 3/4 mile!
12 It's hard to go wrong route-finding up the valley from High Creek, but I wanted to try to hit the ridge as close as possible to the real trail. When I finally did make the ridge, I ended-up -exactly- at the tree with the trail marker on it. Not bad.
13 The view of San Jacinto from the ridge above High Creek. It's an amazing spot.
14 I had nice tracks to follow all the way up to High Creek, and the snow was firmly packed, making for a pretty fast pace. But above High Creek I could find NO tracks at all, melted or otherwise. I was breaking trail the entire rest of the way to the summit, which is pretty amazing considering it hadn't snowed in almost 2 weeks! And the snow was powdery in places, shin to knee deep, which is a lot more work.
15 Just a little bit past where I ended my day last time at right around 10,000'. At this point, you've hit the end of the ridge from High Creek and you make the final climb to the summit. It looks so close, but there's still over 2 miles and 1500' of steep gain to go.
16 As you approach the final ridge before the summit, it becomes clear that there's going to be a lot of traversing here. It's tough to measure scale in the pic, but those are pretty big trees. Unless I want to not follow the actual trail (which I'm tracking on my gps), and go quite a ways out of my way, it looks like I have to traverse about 1/2 mile across this slope, sections of which get pretty steep. That usually wouldnt phase me, but this slope just feels different for some reason.
17 A look at part of my traverse. This is actually taken later in the day on the way back, so there were no tracks the first time across it. Like usual, the picture doesn't do justics to the grade of this slope. It's definitely a double black diamond ski slope, and there's nothing downhill for a long, long ways. If you slip, you're going for the ride of your life, and probably the last ride of your life.
18 A look downslope from my traversing tracks. This gives maybe a little bit of sense of how steep the slope is. If you slip and don't manage to self-arrest, you're going to either start cartwheeling or eventually slam into a tree. I usually don't have any fear of height issues, but for some reason the geometry of this slope and the vastness of the terrain gave me some serious vertigo. It was a major effort to brace myself against the slope and look out to take this pic. Then it was back to traversing. I just stared directly in front of my feet to try to avoid the vertigo.
19 Just about up to the ridge. This is looking back where I just came from. You can see some of my traversing tracks across the slop in the distance again giving you a little idea of what the slope is like.
20 Made it to the ridge just below the summit. This is looking the opposite direction from the summit. Absolutely amazing views in all directions. That's Mt. Baldy in the distance.
21 Still 2-3 feet of snow here on the fully exposed ridge.
22 There were these very cool ice formations along the summit, probably formed through some combination of wind and melting snow. Naturally, you can't tell in the picture, but they have a little bit of the same blue glow as my recent blue ice pics from San Jacinto.
23 Made it!! I couldn't find the summit marker in the snow, so this rock is my offical summit marker for the day.
24 San Jacinto with some clouds blowing down the valley.
25 Mt. Baldy in the distance.
26 Another pic from the top.
27 Another look at San Jacinto.
28 The official 360 degree summit video.
29 Self pic on the summit.
30 It was a bit chilly on top when the wind kicked-up, but not too bad. Overall, just about picture perfect weather. I ended-up sumitting about a half hour before my safe turnaround time, and almost an hour before things would have starting getting dicey. The exploratory mission last time definitely paid off, I made great time today. I spent a half hour on top and probably would have stayed longer if it was a little warmer. I headed back down with plenty of time before sundown and the least sense of urgency of any trek I've had in a while. Definitely a different feeling for me, almost anti-climatic.
31 I take one annoying detour on the way down, but otherwise have a fairly relaxing trip back down to High Creek. A couple people had clearly done some glissading here, so I did as well. It's not until I was looking at this photo back at home that I realized that those are my missing glove liners there about half way down the slope. They must have fallen out of my pocket while sliding down. Grr, those were good liners...
32 Vivian Creek cascading through the snow. It's around this area where I came across a couple late day snowshoers headed up the trail. We exchanged "hellos", and the conversation went something like this... "where you coming down from?"... "the summit".... "the top??"... "ya"... "in 1 day??"... "ya"... "by yourself??"... "ya"... "you must have amazing snowshoes!!"... "no, didn't use snowshoes"... "were there tracks all the way up?"... "no, I was breaking trail above High Creek"... "Wow!". It was a nice little boost of confidence to confirm what I had just done isn't particularly easy.
33 VIvian Creek winding through the snow as the sun is getting low.
34 Back down to Mill Creek and almost to the car with a little sunlight to spare. Goal offcially accomplished!