Big Bear Trails

We had cancelled an earlier winter trip up San Gorgonio a month before due to weather. This time, in mid-February 2012, the promising weather made it easy to ignore the modest wind warnings. Just 15 to 25 mph, with gusts to 45? We’d experienced worse up there. Hadn’t we? This would be my 5th time up there in the last 12 months – no problem. Bluebird skies and fresh snow called us. Matt and I were on.

The number of cars in the South Fork Trailhead lot surprised us. Twenty cars …

A dad and daughter overnight backpacking trip to the top of San Gorgonio Mountain, the highest point in Southern California at 11,503′. A 6 mile hike to overnight at Dollar Lake up the South Fork Trail, then 5 miles to the top the next day, followed by 11 miles back down that afternoon in perfect conditions. See the video trip report:

While you can also view a detailed written Trip Report with lots of photos from my Mt Whitney summit, below is a short video of my 1 day solo climb of Mt Whitney via the Main Trail from Whitney Portal on June 20, 2011:

Thanks to a successful trail lottery, I had a chance to climb 14,505′ to the top of Mt. Whitney – the highest spot in the Lower 48 states – in a single exhausting day, via the Main trail, on June 20, 2011. See my video here. Due to the recent Spring storms and relatively early permit date, I didn’t quite know how much lingering winter to expect. The Ranger at the Station in Lone Pine (“Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center”) confirmed some places had as much as 200% of normal …

Spring in the San Bernardino Mountains is beautiful and unpredictable. I had planned to do a snow ascent up the north face of San Gorgonio Mountain and was encouraged when it snowed two weeks prior, and concerned when it reached 70 degrees a week later. Or was it the other way around? As the saying goes in the mountains, if you don’t like the weather, wait a few hours. All of which makes trip planning a bit trickier. We knew we would encounter some snow since you could still see …

The plan was simple: head straight up from the top of Sand Canyon Road to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain, elevation 9952′. A bit over 3 miles as the crow flies, and 3000′ of climbing. While it was April and there was some snow remaining in the Big Bear Valley, we didn’t know the exact conditions we would encounter as we ascended. The summit certainly looked snowy, but whether we would encounter hard ice, soft snow, or significant bare patches was unknown. So we came prepared for all three.

Matt and …