SummitPost.org

could sunday be the day?

Heavy snow has been falling all night. We have almost 2 feet as of this morning here at 5,200'. The snow just keeps falling at maybe an inch per hour. Roads are blocked, total winter shutdown right now. Very promising.

i played around on tahquitz a few times this week. it looked promising, but mostly a bunch of snow covering the rock. last weekend we got a bunch of snow, and the temps stayed very cold. not much melting and freezing over the last week. although i found plenty of fun, it really would not be worth a drive... yet. the trough had the best ice i have ever seen on the first pitch with many variations to be had. but the bulk of the climb is snow... and a bunch of it...

after today's epic ends, tahquitz is gonna need some time to ice up. but i would say the game is gonna be on...

Thanks very much for the report guys! Very helpful.

A friend and I climbed the first two pitches of The Trough today. We got stuck behind another party, so we had to bail from the ledge with the pine tree because we had to be back in LA by 2 pm. It was very warm, so what ice there was was running with a lot of water and was detached. It was still fun, and the move out of the trough onto the ledge was interesting, as it always is in crampons. The approach was heinous with knee to hip-deep postholing the whole way; thankfully my partner took more than his share of trail-breaking. We checked out NE Face W and it looked very thin but doable for the first half pitch, but above that it was just unconsolidated snow (it didn't look like neve, but it's hard to tell from below). The headwall had no ice at all.

the best partner and i were up there too. we were gonna do the trough again, but with TWO parties on it we decided to head to the other side. conditions were not great, but typical. we had a ton of fun. going through the chimney system is fun... but the ice was just like on the trough, lots of water and falling off.

DAMN, it was crowded up there yesterday.

Three parties heading up to do the Trough on the same day?! That's just wild. Seems like it used to just get done a few times over the season.

I think threads like this are a mixed blessing. They are really great for sharing information about conditions, etc., that, BITD, you just didn't have access to unless you knew someone who was in the know. I would have loved to have this info back when I was young and hungry and had the time to act on it (compared to now, where I'm older, still hungry but have zero time--boo hoo). At the same time, they permit of a convergence like what x15x15 mentioned. Nothing in this world is perfect I guess.

Here's to wishing everyone gets a decent shot this winter.

Wooo hooo.
I haven't been up there but it's gotta be gettin' good.
I heard that it's been getting some ascents, heard by word of mouth.
Any reports?
Asmrz.... you are the authority. Got any comments?

Jack and all,

Around about January 29-31, there were fantastic conditions on Tahquitz. First time since 2010 there was ice on the North Face.
My wife Penelope and I climbed on the North Face January 31 and again on February 3rd. Conditions were great.

Last week we had four days of rain. Temperatures went from 25 low and high 30s to 46 low and 60s high. Yesterday, we hiked to the top of Suicide. The view was disheartening. Tahquitz rock has not a speck of snow on it, nothing. I think the ten day window in late January was all for this winter...

It was solidly good a couple weeks ago. Tahquitz and the entire backcountry had plenty of stuff to play on. Unfortunately for me, my 2 partners got sick and I was stuck going solo. I had amazing conditions, but I had to keep the level toned down quite a bit. 2 days later it was a whole lot different and now it's just as Alois describes. There is however a ton of moisture all over the area and all we need is some more cold, cold weather and the stashes of ice should come back... more snow will help too... and the skiing was phenomenal...