A Weekend at Mt. Baldy & Mt. San
Gorgonio, So. California March 24 &
25,2006, by Alvin Walter
Mt. Baldy Resort (Saturday, March
24,2006)
The knowledge that a new, cold storm had
born down on our previously dry local
mountains always brings out the drive to
make 1st tracks my highest priority.
Considering that the brunt of the storm
was to be hitting Saturday, the choice
to spend the day at the Baldy Ski Resort
to thoroughly explore the snow
conditions for the next scheduled day of
skiing the ridgeline from Thunder
Mountain to Telegraph to Timber to Ice
House Canyon a top priority. Getting up
the steep, icy road at 7:00 am was a
challenge in itself, considering the
wildly swerving skid-marks and tracks
that I had to by-pass with my chained
vehicle to get there.
The chair lift opened early and I was on
my way to the Notch as I admired the
wonderful work Mother Nature had done to
paint the tress and terrain with her
lovely, white powder brush. At the top
of the Notch was the mandatory and
appropriate cautionary sign warning
"Experts Only - Exposed Rocks Below".
There was no way I could resist the
untracked steep, powdery slopes I had
just been transported past, so down I
went! And what a joy it was to ski down
those steep, long, unobstructed 6-inch
deep powder chutes without seeing a sale
giving the first run a true wilderness
experience. Toward the lower end of the
run, where it begins to flatten out, the
earlier rock warning sign was proving
its validity as my skies bared through
the new, thin powder and scrapped,
banged and jerked on the rocks below.
On the next run, I decided to ski the
upper part of the mountain from Chair 3.
There were many exceptional, untracked
powder runs throughout the day, from
South Bowl to the north edge of the
resort. There also were many terrain
features and aspects where the hard,
brown and black matter below the thin
layer of new snow ripped and tore at my
skis turning them into gnarled shreds of
what they formerly were.
Mid-day, through the many bottom
scrapping runs, it was obvious that the
snow base I thought would be there from
the heavy snowfall the weekend before
had melted away from the warm, midweek
temperatures and that the ridgeline loop
ski that I invited others to do with me
was not going to be feasible. I had to
contact the others to recommend moving
the ski trip on Sunday to San Gorgonio,
where I knew there was adequate snow
from having spent the entire previous
weekend there. I was only able to leave
a message on one answering machine and
hope the word would get passed around.
The last highest lift from Chair #3 left
at 4: 15 p.m. and I caught it, then the
#2 lift that takes skiers out of the
dead end canyon to the hump above the
Notch at about 4:30 pm. A last run to
the bottom of chair # I was irresistible
and I ended an 8-1h hour resort ski day
by 4:45 p.m. The snow was, again, coming
down heavily when I got to my car where
4+ new inches had just accumulated. A
short way into the drive down from the
Resort, the traffic stopped and I knew
it would be a long time before I would
get out. My cell phone was useless; so,
I just parked, ate the food I had with
me and sat it out. By 8:30 p.m., I was
at the bottom and able to reach Ellen to
ask her to send an email for me
requesting that everybody planning to
ski Sunday now meet me at San Gorgonio's
South Fork parking lot a 7:00 am due to
inadequate snow coverage at Baldy. That
turned out to be a very good choice.
Mt. San Gorgonio (Sunday, March 25,2006)
At 7:00 a.m. Scott, Cedric, Brad, Dan
and Bob met me at the South fork parking
lot, where I had spent the.jpg)
night. The snow base from the previous
weekend plus the new snow from the
latest storm made it possible to start
skiing right across Jenks Lake Road from
the parking area. The initial ascent up
to the lower end of the major avy paths
that come down from Mt. Charleton was
smooth and easy including the route that
goes up through the trees directly to
the lower end of Big Draw. At that
point, the upper slopes of the east
facing chutes of Mt. Jepson were
beginning to show through the windows
between the Lodge Pole and White Pines.
After a short break for lunch from a
vantage point that gave us a broad view
of the entire, pristine and untouched
upper bowl, we set our sites on laying
down first tracks in the full range of
aspects from San G's west facing
shoulder to Mt. Jepson's northeast
facing flanks.
As we set our ascending course to the
upper rim, the half dozen or so natural,
mini-avy's that textured the chutes of
Mt. Jepson's deepest and steepest added
to the dramatic photo opportunities we
envisioned as we were planning to photo
shoot straight across opposite sides of
the large cirque using our
walkie-talkies for maximum position to
show the best of the best lines.
As we gained elevation, the wind and
clouds grew in motion and size. The mood
of the area seemed to.jpg) change
rapidly from a sunny, bluebird day to
the foreboding darkness of another
storm. When we approached the last few
hundred feet, we split up with Scott,
Brad and Cedric ascending straight up
with skis on packs and kicking steps in
the vertical snow, while Dan and I
continued to traverse over to the
cornice. The headwall at first appeared
to have a skiable bench to the top that
turned out to be deceptive due to the
variable light conditions. The only
option was to take off the skis and use
my self-arrest poles to climb a nearly
overhanging, hard packed headwall. At
the top, the wind was ripping and the
visibility a virtual whiteout.
Via walkie-talkie, we agreed to re-group
above the cornice. From there, the
challenge was to find our way off the
edge. Dan inadvertently lead the way by
sliding off the edge that none of us
could see.
Cedric managed a decent entry while I
fell through the curl of the cornice
that I couldn't see. Brad and Scott both
found sweet spots to enter through.
At about 25 feet below the top,
visibility increased and our perspective
became clear. We had the entire, un
tracked powder bowl below us. Needless
to say, we savored hundreds of powder
turns. Brad at one point.jpg)
took a full throttle slalom run over
undulating powder terrain. It was a
thrill for all of us. Our decent took a
somewhat different course back through
tree areas where we nailed a steep,
powder pitch that was near
champagne-light that sent off shouts and
shrieks of ecstasy. Oh, for the joy of
wilderness skiing!
A short while later, we got in the trail
that leads back to the cars. It had
frozen up nicely and it was like taking
an E-ticket wild mouse ride at the Magic
Kingdom all the way back to the cars.
What a blast!
Such magical weekends at our o.wn Magic
Kingdom in San Gorgonio aren't always
the norm, but that didn't stop us from
quickly making plans for the next one!
With another March miracle of snowfall,
we'll be looking forward to many more
Spring Time ski days this season.
Best Regards To All, Alvin Walter
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