Work Party '05

Every June and October there is a work party at the ski hut. In the past I have never brought a camera and I probably won't again since I didn't take many pictures. A group of 20-30 of us meet at the trailhead and haul up badly needed items and things that are two hard for 1 person to carry. On the way up I took a few pictures of interesting plants.

A group of 6 of us took turns carrying a ladder to the hut. It wasn't heavy but it was awkward to carry.

This next picture is interesting. This plant is basically a parasite. It lives below ground and feeds off the root system of the pine trees. It only pops above ground for a short time to spread it's seeds, then it goes back underground. I don't recall ever seeing it before on Baldy but I am sure it was there.

Although most of the snow had melted there was still a lot of snow on the mountain. Above 9000' it was still pretty much entirely covered in a few feet of snow. This picture is from about 7000' and you can see there is still a good amount of snow for this time of year.

Gil hooked up with the owner of some llamas. They each helped out by carrying about 50 pounds of paint each up to the hut.

At dinner a few hikers reported one of there friends had not shown up at the hut and it had been several hours. They had been on the summit. A few of us headed up to the west ridge to look for him while SAR was in route. We didn't find him. We got back to the hut and attended the now famous "Outhouse Party". SAR came up and headed up the West ridge. They turned back pretty quickly. We never heard why but our assumption was there was a team going up Good canyon and they found the missing hiker over there.