San Gorgonio spring summit

What should we climb now?

With a hike up Santiago Peak in Orange County and our first crampon adventure up Mt Baldy (via the bowl) behind us, my wife, Cheryl, and I asked ourselves "what's next?"
A bit of research on the internet and San Gorgonio seemed like the logical choice. By adding an overnight camp into the mix we felt it would be another step in preparation for our future goal of Mt Rainier. In typical fashion, this idea came about around six weeks ago and before you know it, with zero hiking/climbing/mountain/camping experience we're off up a big hill with REI rented crampons and ice axes!
Our plan, accompanied by the appropriate permits, was to summit Saturday then camp at High Creek and descend the rest of the way on Sunday morning. Reports suggested crampons from about 8,000' on and weather looked great for Saturday and cooling Sunday, perfect.

Getting started

We left home at 7:30am and made the 90 mile drive to the trailhead, checking in at the Ranger station for any last minute reports and to use their delightful restrooms. The Ranger mentioned a tree down early on the trail, "take the steep side around" she managed in a disinterested tone.
By the time we park, gear up and make our way through the picnic area to the trailhead it's now 10:30am, much later than we planned.

The river wash was running pretty good so we took our time picking our way across as starting the day with wet feet didn't seem like a great plan.
We hit the trail switch backing up the daunting bluff and as the reports we read mentioned its steep and lots of loose rock and stone. Pretty soon we came across the downed tree which literally wiped out a whole section of the hillside. It was very unclear where the trail was above this point and a group of eight hikers were hacking their way through the foliage to the right trying to find the way. We joined them, as they seemed to be making progress, and using my over ambitious logic I decided to take us further up the very steep slope as the trail certainly went up. We could actually cut out some switchbacks and save some time. Once we hit a rock abutment on the 50 degree plus face, Cheryl politely suggested we should head back down to where the other group had found the trail about half an hour ago and moved on.

I admit defeat and we scramble back down adding to the thorn collection embedded in our bodies.
It's now fast approaching noon, we've shagged ourselves out and we're barely halfway up the first section, not even a mile in.

Progress

We forge on ahead and start covering some ground at a decent rate. The weather was beautiful, sun out, warm air, I'm in a tank top and my wife's in a short sleeve shirt and shorts. The lower sections are clear of snow but once we approach Vivian Creek we start encountering large patches and areas of snow and ice. We catch the group of hikers up who have stopped for lunch at Vivian Creek and chat with them a few minutes.
Their leader seems to know the mountain and informs us three of them are heading on while the rest are heading back. We push on and start encountering more mixed snow and bare trail conditions. It's becoming increasingly unclear where the trail goes, especially when the few tracks there are split in different paths. We pause at one of these sections and while contemplating our next move our three trail buddies catch up.
I ask them which way and after looking around their leader replies in broken English (he's an Asian fellow) "up" and points up a very steep slope that appears to maybe have been used by someone before. "Short cut" he adds. Okay, having not followed this guy around the fallen tree and screwed up, costing us an hour, we decide we'll go with him this time!
About an hour later, four trillion thorn holes and a lot of head scratching we find what appears to be the trail again. We've lost the Asian trio as one of their group is very slow moving so we press on and pretty soon we're at Halfway.
Why is it called halfway? its neither halfway in distance or elevation? Halfway to where?
Anyway, we're encountering a lot more snow sections now and just when you think you should don the crampons you hit another bare trail bit and hold off. We eventually come across a decent incline with all snow and stop to throw the crampons on. Down the slope come two guys we met two weeks before on Baldy (and we really haven't seen hardly anyone all day). They got somewhere beyond the ridge above High Creek and turned around before the summit as they felt they were out of time. They had left early that morning with day packs.
We pressed on again and mulled over the options we had as it was pretty clear we were not going to summit and make it back down to High Creek before dark.
We kept the crampons on through the last section of bare trail by the waterfall leading into High Creek and then had nothing but snow from there on.
4pm and we roll into High Creek. We've got about four hours of daylight left. A group of six experienced hikers came through and we chat with them for a bit. They made the summit and said it's really windy up high, they had started early and were a lot later than they'd hoped to be. They gave us some info on where to head from here up, which was key as we had no idea which direction to head next. Before they pushed on their way I asked "what about camping further up?" "Hmmm... maybe on the ridge, but it's getting really windy, I wouldn’t you're better off camping here".

Decision

We top up with water and throw in the treatment pills and contemplate our position. Meanwhile the Asian trio roll in and start setting up camp (the only other campers we ever see). The day had been tougher than we'd expected, especially with 45lb and 30lb packs. The idea of having another 2300 vertical feet of ascent before the summit and then descending seemed a little daunting for the next morning. I keep looking up at the ridge above us. It's around 800' of elevation up a 30-40 degree slope (my best guess) and we've got plenty of daylight to do it, just seemed like a such a waste of time to stay here when we could make so much more progress. I was sure we could find a sheltered spot on the ridge and the fact that you're supposed to only camp in the camp area and we’d just been told it’s not a good idea sealed the deal, we’ll head up.
Decision made, we headed off up the slope. We ran into another small group of younger hikers scooting their way down. A really nice fellow in their group stopped and chatted a while with us and gave us some more pointers and he thought we'd be fine camping on the ridge, in fact he was quite excited about the idea.
The 800' was tough going but my amazing little 5'2" 125lb wife and her 30lb pack soldiered on and we made the ridge.

Turning left we started looking for a sheltered spot and indeed the wind was blowing pretty good in the trees above us. We pushed on for a while until we came to a little dip right before the ridgeline goes steeply up. There was a small, relatively flat area in the lee of a pair of trees and though the wind was strong above us it was barely a breeze around where we stood.

Camping at 10,000'

I dug and scraped with my ice axe in an attempt to get a nice flat area which accomplished a slightly sloped plateau (we discovered that night) and a dizzy and slightly nauseous feeling. As sea level dwellers, 10,000' elevation has a noticeable effect, especially after a long strenuous day. We busted out our new Marmot Limelight 3P tent and assembled it for the second time in its life. The first having been in our living room as a test run. We buried the snow stakes I'd bought and used our axes to secure the rain fly vestibules.
All went well and we settled inside as the sun was going down and the temperature plummeted rapidly. Wow, it's getting cold.

We sparked up the Jetboil and began the laborious process of boiling water. This little stove boasts the ability to boil 2 cups of water in 2 minutes... not at 10,000' it doesn't! Each one took around 8-9 minutes, but the stove is still very impressive none the less.
We tucked into our pouch of dinner, which was palatable but hardly tasty, and tried to keep drinking water to replenish from the days activities.
We're feeling like quite the adventurers now, eating our pouches of dehydrated food by headlamp, with our sleeping bags bundled around us as the temperature keeps dropping.
We venture outside for a pee and to stash the bear canister full of anything smelly... which means we ought to be in it as we're not exactly odour free ourselves.
Holy crap it's cold.
Back in the tent, which offers zero insulation, I hang my wet socks up to dry overnight, tuck our boots and gear in the corner and we nestle down in our bags for some well earned shut eye.
The wind is howling through the trees around us. The ground is extremely cold and any part of you that ventures beyond your sleeping pad is instantly freezing cold. We're wearing all our clothes except our jackets.
Our Mountain Hardwear Pinole 20 sleeping bags are wrapped around us and the mummy hood is cinched down tight with just a breathing hole left open.
We nod off a couple of times during the night for a few minutes each but otherwise it's a pretty miserable, freezing arse cold experience!
At 5am it's 27 degrees Fahrenheit inside the tent.
We wait for the sun to come up before attempting any activity in the hope the temperature will soar as quickly as it dropped last night. It doesn't.
I take my socks I hung up to dry and do my best to put the frozen solid pieces of wool in my clothes stuff sack. My leather Raichle boots are frozen stiff. We fire up the Jetboil and start the process of breakfast and melting snow for drinking water. Cheryl tucks the pouches in the boots once we’ve added the boiling water to try and unfreeze them while we’re waiting the eight minutes for dehydrated food to magically turn into breakfast.

Towards the summit

The sky is clear but the temperature is refusing to come up and the wind is kicking pretty good. We take one pack with just the basics and leave everything else in the tent. It's about 8:30am and we head out for the summit.
The terrain is crispy and icy and the going is good in the crampons. We head up the steep part of the ridge into a more open area as the trees thin out.
Ahead of us traversing the slope to our right are three figures which must be our trail buddies, dang they made an early start.
We follow along traversing around the open, exposed slopes that seem to go on forever. You round a corner and there's another long section. We finally head up a rise and over the crest to the... where the hell is the summit of this stupid mountain! Ahead is another flat stretch and slight rise to another crest. Around us is rocky peaks about 50'-100' above us, they all look like they're the same height!
The wind is getting stronger and stronger and is bitterly cold, the temperature is yet to make it out of the thirties and with the wind chill is well below freezing. The only good thing at the moment is that the wind is at our backs and giving us a helping hand up... at the moment.
We finally make it over the last crest and there's the actual summit, probably six inches taller than all the rest but it's the summit!!
I have to say it's pretty anti climactic, you expect this impressive peak clearly swamping all around and it's basically a rock pile protruding through the snow and from the top all these other false peaks look about the same.
Anyway, the view is spectacular in all directions and we took the standard pictures, Cheryl signed the book and we hid from the wind behind the little stone wall and snacked and rested a few minutes. From camp to summit in under two hours seemed reasonable and we felt good about our decision to get the ridge climb behind us the afternoon before.

The wind is steady at well over 30mph and gusting a lot higher than that as we start our descent directly into it.
Cheryl can hardly walk straight, she looks like Charley Chaplin, her axe swinging around like his cane as she fights to stay even close to a straight line.
Once we're clear of the crests and back on the slope the wind drops to a manageable level and we make good progress. We both feel surprisingly okay despite our sleepless night and within an hour we're back at the tent.

Getting down

It takes about an hour to bust camp and repack everything and as we step out of our little sheltered camp area we look across the horizon west to a sea of ugly black cloud burrowing its way between the mountains coming towards us. I've never seen clouds moving so fast.
It's time to get down.
We set off traversing the ridge slope looking for a good glissading route for a speedy descent. With a mixture of climbing and sliding we make our way down and back to High Creek. The slope is still pretty icy in sheltered spots so our bums are a bit sore from glissading, kind of felt like the mountain was trying to shove snowballs up our… well, you get the idea. As we get to the falls we take off our crampons this time for the bare trail and wish we hadn't when we get to the next snow section.
It's amazing how long the trek still is going down. You think, cool, we've summited, cleared the heavy snow sections and now its plain sailing. But it goes on forever! The patchy snow and ice sections were treacherous in places, especially with the pack on as it pulls you as soon as you're slightly off balance. The weather continued to look dodgy and the temperature levelled off in the low forties.
We found the "real" trail where we'd taken the short cut with our buddies the day before which saved an awful lot of thorn damage and some time. This way was all snow and we finally succumbed to putting crampons back on at a steep slope traverse which turned out to be 50' from bare trail at the point we'd made the short cut yesterday!
The lack of sleep and strenuous work started to take its toll and the last two hours down were a hard slog. The final mile down the steep bluff was a bitch on the feet with your tired feet being crammed into the toes of your boots. We found the detour around the fallen tree this time, well obvious by the path worn by others already and the rangers had now taped off the path below showing clearly where to go up. Nothing like a clearly obvious solution in front of you after you'd made the dumb decision yesterday to make you feel more stupid!
Four pm and we were back crossing the wash and what a relief it was to get the boots off and dump the backpack at the truck.

Summary

We certainly weren't the fastest up the hill, we definitely didn't make the smoothest trip, but we summited, we camped out in the snow at elevation and we learned a lot and had a great adventure.
It's around 16.8 miles round trip (varies according to different sources) and about 5600' of elevation gain with the peak at 11,499', the highest point in southern California.
Clearly it’s possible, even in the conditions we experienced, to make it up and back in a day with an early start but I’m glad we camped. It was great experience and with the mistakes I made on the way up we wouldn’t have made it in a day if we’d tried.
This is no Annapurna that's for sure, but for a couple of newbie’s in their forties/fifties just starting this new pursuit, on their third hike ever, it was plenty of challenge and excitement.

Next time? Well, one thing is very clear, better information on the trail and directions. I'm sure when the snow is cleared the trail is worn and obvious but with the snow and a lot of post winter/spring debris some of the trail is not at all obvious and really quite confusing if you've never been there before. I certainly don't think the rangers should do anything different, it's up to us to take the responsibility to know where we're going and I need to do a better job of that next time. A topo map would have been a good investment.
Clothing, we layered up pretty well but there's a reason why there's an abundance of very specific gear available for this sort of activity and during the night I would have paid a premium for some Smartwool underwear instead of the cut price Walmart polyester underwear left over from a ski trip five years ago.
Apart from that, I can't wait to do it again. I have the best wife in the world that’s simply amazing and puts up with my hair brain schemes, supports my crazy projects and is with me every step. It's truly fantastic sharing these experiences together.
Got a year to get ready for Rainier so we'll see you in the mountains!

Images

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