This was a spectacular hike! 16 miles round trip. It's only about an hour away from LA (be careful on the switchbacks through Baldy village! We had to slow down to first gear several times...) We got to the trailhead only to realize that we left our food at home. We still had water, so we decided to go halfway. But fortunately, halfway is the ski house, where they serve food. So we were able to still go as far as we could to the top.
This is Mt Baldy from the Ski House, and you can see where we turned around. We didn't make it to the very top because it was too deep of snow and too narrow of a path.
But we did make it 9400 ft up (the peak is at 10k ft). Total we hiked a 4000 ft elevation gain. At the point that we stopped, Rita had tried to chase a snowball and ended up sliding down about 400 ft of a steep incline (~75 degrees). It was really scary. We weren't sure if she would make it back up. Here she is, trudging her way back up...
The hike was absolutely beautiful. It took about 5.5 hrs. We were really tired the last hour, but the trail was all downhill, so that helped a bit.
Rita loves the snow, and made for some great entertainment the whole hike. She couldn't figure out the difference between snow and a snowball, so she'd dig around and try to find the thrown balls.
Here are some of my favorite pictures (click any photo to enlarge):
(the icy switchbacks)
(Mt Baldy with the view towards Los Angeles)
(the waterfall)
(such blue skies!)
To view the whole album, click here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=223433&id=527707845&l=635ad7d784
This was a spectacular hike! 16 miles round trip. It's only about an hour away from LA (be careful on the switchbacks through Baldy village! We had to slow down to first gear several times...) We got to the trailhead only to realize that we left our food at home. We still had water, so we decided to go halfway. But fortunately, halfway is the ski house, where they serve food. So we were able to still go as far as we could to the top.
This is Mt Baldy from the Ski House, and you can see where we turned around. We didn't make it to the very top because it was too deep of snow and too narrow of a path.
But we did make it 9400 ft up (the peak is at 10k ft). Total we hiked a 4000 ft elevation gain. At the point that we stopped, Rita had tried to chase a snowball and ended up sliding down about 400 ft of a steep incline (~75 degrees). It was really scary. We weren't sure if she would make it back up. Here she is, trudging her way back up...
The hike was absolutely beautiful. It took about 5.5 hrs. We were really tired the last hour, but the trail was all downhill, so that helped a bit.
Rita loves the snow, and made for some great entertainment the whole hike. She couldn't figure out the difference between snow and a snowball, so she'd dig around and try to find the thrown balls.
Here are some of my favorite pictures (click any photo to enlarge):
(the icy switchbacks)
(Mt Baldy with the view towards Los Angeles)
(the waterfall)
(such blue skies!)
To view the whole album, click here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=223433&id=527707845&l=635ad7d784
1 comment:
Kewl!
Post a Comment