Pics are coming, my buddy is on spring break in Indian Creek, UT. When he gets back I'll post photos... Alright, as promised, here are the photos!
Our home away from home, it looks small but we had enough room for both our packs, us and our stove for cookin'!
Mt. Irvine 13,770' in the background
Grass Lake approx. 11,200' high point for the trip
Here is a little before and after...
August 2010
March 2011
The shortage of recent posts on my part was not because of a lack of adventures but rather the opposite. I did a short day hike up to Icehouse Saddle a few days after a big storm (about 2 storms ago...). I gained the saddle then followed the contour out towards Cucamonga Peak, my goal for the day. Post-holing through 12 inches of fresh powder was pretty tiring and I had gotten a late start, to avoid ice on Mt Baldy Rd (which I hit a little of anyways), so I turned around after about 1/3 of a mile. I was also a bit sketched by the deep powder on top of hard ice. There was avy potential and I was by myself.
Then there was the trip up Bailey Canyon trail. I got within spitting distance (ok maybe not that close) of Harvard Peak before turning around due to lack of daylight. I also headed out to Jtree and did several climbs, including TR of British Airways and my first time on Pope Crack, I’ve been climbing out here for almost 20 years, how could I have never done Pope Crack?!
All this fun, was training for a winter High Sierra trip that kicked off on Friday. The original plan was to head up on Friday at noon to the Meysan Lakes and hike in as far as we could get that night then go for the summit of Lone Pine Peak (12,944ft) on Saturday via the North Ridge. Midweek before the trip we almost cancelled due to the weather but Thursday night we decided to go for it anyways, if the weather was bad in the mountains we would camp in Alabama Hills and go rock climbing instead. Friday morning 3 guys from our party decided to head up 3 hours early and break trail, myself and Tyler (long time climbing buddy) and I would leave Rancho Cucamonga REI at noon.
The drive up the Portal road was exciting several house sized boulders and large trees had fallen into the road along with several rock slides. We were glad to be in my buddies 4x4 lifted pick-up. We got on the trail and after crossing the creek we ascended a couloir, following old snow shoe tracks. Once we gained enough elevation we traversed over onto the trail where we started post holing up to our waist. So we donned our snowshoes and left them on for the rest of the hike. We hiked for hours (about 5 total). My pack weighed around 30 pounds and Tyler’s weighed in closer to 40 (he had the tent and stove). It was slow going but we maintained a steady pace.
Towards sunset the temps plummeted, my Platypus froze, despite my best efforts to blow the water back into the reservoir. The last discussion we had had with the other 3 guys in our group, was that morning and they said they would hike to the 1st notch and setup camp there. Well at around 8:30pm (we both did not bring watches) we arrived at the beginning of the traverse to gain the ridge at the 1st notch of Lone Pine Peak. We started calling for our buddies and shining headlamps, we heard and saw nothing so we hiked around a bit. The wind was blowing in 30mph plus gusts covering us in powder, it was very dark and we were both very cold so we gave up looking for them and found a nice spot in a stand of pines to setup our tent (we had borrowed a Bibler single wall tent – boy was it amazing! Single wall tents are awesome and this one was especially nice because you could set it up inside!) We got situated which took awhile because the rest of our “missing” party had the only shovel so we had to use snowshoes to dig a spot for our tent. We fired up the stove and began melting snow for dinner. It was then that I discovered my bag was only rated to 20F and the temps were supposed to drop below zero that night without compensating for windchill! Fortunately my buddy had brought an ultra-light survival bivy sack and I put on all my extra cold weather clothing. Surprisingly I slept very warm the whole night, I slept with my Platypus to keep it from freezing and used my boots as a pillow so they would not freeze either. It was a long night, mainly due to the wind, lumpy snow as a mattress and elevation induced headache.
However in the morning we awoke to blue skies and 6 inches of fresh powder (Tyler had woken up in the night a few times and knocked the snow off our tent). After we melted snow for breakfast we broke camp, packed up and continued hiking up. We thought that maybe the other 3 guys in our group might have headed up to Grass Lake, which is right below the decent couloir that climbers use to get off the mountain. We had discussed this as being an alternate route up to the summit. It took about 1 and a half hours to hike up to Grass Lake. All signs of the trail had disappeared at this point so we headed cross country. Little Mesyan lake was frozen and covered in tons of fresh powder so we hiked right across it. When we arrived at Grass Lake it had warmed up considerably so I removed a few layers while Tyler went looking for the rest of our party. He came back empty handed so we hiked up a bit further to the coulior to see if we could spot their footprints. Still nothing, in fact the coulior looked like it had avalanched recently but the whole way up we had not seen any sign of our party; boot prints, cairns, and all the good bivy spots showed no signs of being disturbed in weeks. The other half of our group also had the only rope and due to the recent avalanche and an incoming storm Tyler and I decided to head back down to the trailhead. We were a little concerned about the rest of the group but they were very experienced (they had several ascents of El Cap and various 20,000+ peaks in Peru between them).
We hiked a bit in our snowshoes but the fresh powder ontop of the harder snow was causing us to slip constantly, the teeth on our snowshoes just couldn’t handle the aggressive slope and the snow conditions so we took them off and glissaded down the hillsides, every once in awhile we would be nearly swallowed by a hidden chasm. As we got lower the creek finally emerged from beneath the snow and we were able to get fresh water (problem with only having one pot to cook and melt snow with is that your drinking water can become filled with little floaty bits, especially if you burn your dinner)…
About one mile from the trailhead we spotted the other half of our party on the opposite side of the canyon! We were very surprised to see them, we had figured they had been spooked by the incoming storm and had bailed but instead they had gone on a bush-wacking adventure because none of them knew where the trail was (and apparently they did not have a map either)… We shouted back and forth to each other and agreed to meet back at the trailhead.
When we got back to the trailhead the mountains had disappeared into a thick fog and snow flurries were beginning to blow down. The conditions up in the higher elevations looked miserable and in fact we met a few hikers who reported 90mph winds on the ridges. That weekend the storm dropped 3 times as much snow as expected. It looked like we had made the right decision to skip the summit attempt or else we would have been caught in the storm on a ridge line being lashed by 90mph winds. Nevertheless it was an amazing hike, my first time backpacking and camping in the snow.
Low -15F (high estimate probably was colder)
9 miles round trip
Approx. 5 hours up and 3 down[/b]
Mesyan Lakes/Lone Pine Winter Camping (**Pics**)
Tyler. Don't leave home without him.rokclimbr wrote: ↑ My pack weighed around 30 pounds and Tyler’s weighed in closer to 40 (he had the tent and stove).
Fortunately my buddy had brought an ultra-light survival bivy sack
Tyler had woken up in the night a few times and knocked the snow off our tent.
Tyler went looking for the rest of our party.
HJ
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Johnny Bronson
- Posts: 179
- Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 2:04 pm
90mph winds on the ridge ! WOOOOOO
Nice write up!
Nice write up!
