Backcountry Ski Trip Report: Baden-Powell/9088 Trip Report

I joined up with Dave Puzo (Carlsbad) and Scott Siegrest(Hermosa Beach), whom I met on Telemark Tips, to ski Mt. Baden-Powell this past Sunday. We met up at the Vincent Gulch parking lot parking lot at 7:45. From there we hiked about 1/3 mile along the Angeles Crest highway to the North Gulley(shown by where creek runs down on topo map). The highway is normally just closed in the winter. However, I doubt it will be open at all this summer. At one point, half a lane's worth of the highway (and the supporting ground underneath) has given way and slid down the mountain.















Due to the steep pitch in the gulley and the main bowl, we decided to leave the skins in the car and boot-pack up. However, the snow level in the gulley was far below normal. (We could see the creek running. From what I hear, there is normally 10-15 feet of snow in the creekbed from accumulated snowfall and avalanche runoff.) Since we also decided to leave the rope in the car, we were forced to abondon our plan to hike up the gulley when we got to a sketchy section about 20 minutes in. At that point, we were considering turning back and skinning up the main trail that starts at the parking lot. But as always, once you commit to one course of action, it is difficult to admit defeat and turn back. So we decided to climb the west side of the gulley until we made the ridge and then followed the west ridge up. The climb up the ridge was a bit sketchy. The rock was very crumbly and the mud was fairly loose. Once we started hiking up along the ridge, we wished that we would have brought our skins along. The pitch was low and the snow was deep. The extra 1 lb that the skins weigh seemed like a small price to pay considering we were sinking 1-2 feet into the snow with every step.

Once at the top, we found that the west ridge actually had lead us to the unnamed peak 9088 vice Mt Baden-Powell. We momentarily considered continuing on to Baden-Powell. But after 5 hours of hiking up, we were just too tired. Considering how tough the hike was, the ski down was surprisingly good. We skied the gulley just to the west of the ridge we followed to the top. The top layer (1-2 inches) that wouldn't support us in our ski boots, was more than enough to support us on our skis going down. For the first half, it was almost as if we were skiing a groomer with 2 inches of loose/wet snow on top. About 2/3 of the way down, avalanche debris in the gulley forced us into survival skiing mode. Once past the avalanche debris however, the snow on the last section, although thin and wet, was surprisingly good. We were able to ski all the way to the road.

Recommendations: If you do plan on going up the main north gulley, I recommend that you bring a rope. We wish we would have brought it so we could have proceeded with our orginal plan. In the gulley that we skied, the cover was thin for the bottom third. So this storm coming in Tuesday/Wednesday should help to fill it in. Due to the steep canyon walls and it being an obvious slide path, I would wait a while to ski any of the gulleys. While we were sitting on the top of Burnham eating lunch, Mt Throop caught my eye. It looks to have some nice steep north/northeast facing slopes. They might be worth checking out.

Avalanche Activity: Most of the avalanches we saw were wet slides on west facing slopes. They looked to be several days old and a number had slid all the way to the ground. We experienced some sluffing of the top layer (~2 inches) at a few places. But there was nothing signficant while we were there.