Less than an hour's drive from downtown Los Angeles is a 3000 meter peak called Mount San Antonio (affectionately Mount Baldy). It's a cherished place for local mountaineers and skiers because, as you can imagine, we don't expect winter to be such a short jaunt from our mediterranean Southland. But as they say, "shut-up and show us a picture":
This classic Los Angeles postcard skyline is by user Nserrano of Wikimedia Commons, which I put here under this Creative Commons license. After an exceptional storm and a bit of luck in dodging traffic, this is what Baldy Bowl looked like.
Skiing there last weekend was so awesome that I can't restrain myself from telling the Internet in the hope that the world will understand why we tolerate Los Angeles. Some folks from the Caltech Alpine Club in Pasadena set out on Saturday, January 23, to explore the aftermath of a series of strong El Niño-driven storms on Mt Baldy. We left at 5 am to beat the inevitable rush of snow-starved Angelenos gone to make snowballs and snowmen, but when one of our cars (a 4WD truck) was turned around because we didn't have chains for it, our plans were set back a bit as we parked the truck and crammed into my Toyota Corolla. Sharing the car with 4 pairs of skis, we waited for an hour in the chain-control line, which had been just five cars long twenty minutes ago. Apparently this was a modest delay compared with those later in the day.
When we arrived at Manker Flats and started up the fire road, we were a little dismayed that someone had already started to break trail. This sense of loss was quickly overwhelmed by the enormity of the snow cover, which totally obscured the seven or eight meter wide road in places.
The rope (better visible in the next image in the Picasa album) might have been excessive, but since we were paranoid about the gully crossings en route to the hut and the stability of the snowpack, we brought it to belay sketchy traverses and to provide a lifeline for the first two skiers should they be caught unanchored.
We eventually caught the sole trail breaker thanks to the slow going on the front lines in deep snow, and he kept us company all weekend, which was awesome. I recently found that he climbed Everest just last year! That makes for five Everest veterans who I've run into by chance here in our backyard. When we finally arrived at the hut...
...we found a very tempting sight indeed.
We built a ramp on the outhouse and much fun was had for skiers and spectators alike as a series of grand crashes ensued. Nick had the awesome idea to dig a hole next to the ramp for pictures:
I was pooped from breaking trail and a little sick from having eaten rotten eggs--I guess a week is too far past the "consume before" date--so we made only a short run up the bowl that afternoon. Still, it was glorious:
Afterward, we settled into the hut with our wonderful host, Dan, and about ten other people. If you haven't experienced the San Antonio hut yet, I highly recommend it even if you're of the hard-hitting, self-reliant bivyphiliac variety; I certainly am, but I loved it. It is more charming than the several European alpine huts I've stayed at, but perhaps that's because one doesn't expect such a gem in our backyard here in Los Angeles.
Propelled by oatmeal and alpenglow early Sunday morning...
...we moved up the right side of the bowl and topped out about an hour and a half later after hitting some tricky snow right below the summit plateau.
On top we found an unusual snowdrift which does not seem to form often on Baldy:
We dug caves in it, where we ate our lunch, and we all found ourselves wishing we had time to sleep on top. If you do, get up there! How often do you get the chance to sleep in a snow cave on top of Mt Baldy?
The descent was exhilarating. I'm a pretty mediocre skier and was initially quite intimidated by a chute suggested for the descent. I think this picture captures what was going through my mind:
However, after we ski cut it and it didn't slide, we dropped into an epic D9 descent through Zeke's chute to the middle of the bowl, where we ripped up plumes of powder at over 40 mph. Incredible.
The descent below the ski hut wasn't quite as memorable, but we skied it on excellent cover all the way to the car.
In other news, I haven't done any particularly interesting climbing since the East Buttress of Mount Whitney in Novemeber, but I've had a lot of fun doing silly things such as camping on top of Baldy during a major Pacific storm, where our tent was shredded in hurricane-force winds, attempting the first (?) winter ascent of one of the most remote peaks in the Sierra (named after my school, no less!), and scrambling along a long, third class ridge to perhaps the most beautiful peak in the San Gabriel range, Iron Mountain. I have vague plans for epic struggles to come, but owing to schoolwork I might not be able to do much until this summer, which is a pity because snowy routes are so much better than dry ones.
On the table for the winter season:
Lastly, randonnée skiing seems to have gotten just popular enough in the Southland to warrant a race! I've got some people interested in a very informal, endurance ski mountaineering race which we'll put on in Baldy Bowl on Sunday, February 21, 2010. Come on up! We're meeting at 10 am at the Ski Hut. The route will take 3 laps around the cliffs to the summit and back to the base of the S ridge for 4500 ft up. I'm expecting a modest turnout, but it should be quite a lot of fun.
May time and partners be plentiful!
Hamik