Beware - Rookies on the Mountian!

IIf this page doesn't make any sense, it's because it is 1:00 AM, I have had wine, rum, Guinness, and a cigar. This is a new type of adventure for me - trying to create a web page when I can't hardly stand. Let's see what happens.

After our last trip to Josh, Moody and Kris have gotten the climbing bug (or disease, I haven't had it diagnosed yet so I am not sure which it actually is). It wasn't hard to talk them into trying some alpine climbing. It's so hard to find alpinist in Souther California. I don't know why, there are plenty of mountains with snow. We originally planned our trip for the 23rd which was a few days before the full moon. I wanted them to have a true alpine adventure so we were scheduled to hit the trailhead at about noon so some of the hike would be in the dark. Kris picked up some Pedro's Taco's, then picked up Moody, and stopped at my place. We chowed quickly and were on our way. I can't remember the exact time we hit the trailhead but I think it was around 2 PM. I scoped out the trail a bit the previous weekend. Check this out. In 1 week the snow melted this much.

Before:

After:

So off we went. Here is a picture of us about 2/3 of the way to the hut. The weather was great. We could see a storm coming in but it never reached us. When we headed home, it was overcast. Kris had hike this trail with me once before but Moody (aka Steve Moody) had never been up here before. Since this was their first alpine climb and they had not seen much snow in their lives, I had them rent an ice axe, helmet, an crampons as well as get all the other cold weather gear they needed.

The week had been real warm so I was worried they weren't going to be able to use any of their rentals. Once we were close to the hut you could see the snow covering the trail on the left side of the bowl. Although there wasn't snow to the summit, there was a long run. I suited up with the 2 ninja's ... I mean rookies and we had a fun alpine climb.

This is a picture of the route we followed. Someone already broke trail. Who ever did it was wacked out of their mid. The trail has some oddities like going right through a bush.

If you have never heard of Tapatio, it's a hotsauce. I put it on EVERYTHING!!!. I love it so much I even created a parody of it called TioTony (see the logo on my homepage). Maybe I'll create a FrioTony sticker with this picture.

As was the plan, the sun went down and it got dark. None the less, Kris and Moody were having a great time.

I was also having a great time. Ever since I move to CA from MN, I don't get to play in the snow as much as I would like. Now that I have Kris and Moody hooked, hopefully I can play more often, permitted there is snow.

If you have ever wondered what it is like to be on a mountain, in the dark, in snow, this is pretty much all your going to see.

Eventually we made it to our high point of about 9000` feet. Still 1000' feet short of the summit, we had a great time. The two rookies had made it up an alpine route an learned the lesson that 90% of the time, you don't make it to the summit.

Since we wanted a picture of the three of us, we had to improvise a tripod. This actually worked pretty well considering the 25+ MPH winds on the ridge.

Here is a nice picture of me on the way down the trail. The white dot is the reflection off my Black Diamond gloves.

We all made it to the car safely although I think Kris was suffering from High Altitude Moutain Sickness.