Mount San Gorgonio Climb

In the message I sent out last week about my San
Jacinto Peak climb I included a picture with Mount San
Gorgonio in the distance, saying that it was my next
destination.  Well - Been There, Done That!  I
summited San Gorgonio Peak, in the Mount San Gorgonio
Wilderness Area, inside the San Bernardino National
Forest this past weekend, 3/19 & 3/20.

The best way to summarize my trip, is that it was the
best most miserable experience I can ever recall
having.  It never got warmer than 36 deg F.  Above
8500 ft the winds never died below 15 mph, but after
thawing out on the ride home yesterday it is an
experience I will always reflect on.


What I intended to be a solo journey ended up being a
group event.  Members of an internet based climbing
club had gathered from throughout all Southern
California to do a two day summit attempt.  They were
taking the same route I was:  South Fork - Dry Lake
Trail.

Day 1 was somewhat hilarious. The group consisted of
13 people.  Four guys had GPS units, only one had a
compass, and no one had a map!  Well I was trailing
the group (See picture), and eventually they got lost.
I went to the lead, located our position on my map,
and led every one to camp - Seems trivial but it
wasn't.  It was late, 4:30pm, we had walked 6 miles
in, 3,800 ft up; we were completely enveloped in a
cloud bank at 30 deg F, with winds blowing at least 25
mph.  We eventually made camp in what looked like an
avalanche survivable, mostly tree protected area,
inside a bowl between San Jospeh and San Gorgonio
Peaks.  As a side note, the best part of day 1 was
boiling water for dinner in 24 degree weather with
wind howling at 40 mph gusts, in the dark!


Day two started at 6:00am, the climb at 7:30am, and I
didn't stop moving until 6:00pm when I was sitting in
my "Nomad".

Since we were an adventurous group we decided not to
take the established trail up, and instead we made our
own route by scaling the North face of Mount San
Gorgonio.  For this choice we had the pleasure of
enduring a 1.5 mile ascent, with a 1650 ft elevation
gain, on a ridge with constant 35-50  mph winds.  See
pictures.

Java and I passed everyone up to the top.  I
established the route and he and I had a good 5
minutes of time alone at the peak.  I spent a few more
minutes with the next climber up and we took each
other pictures.  We estimated there were constant 80
mph winds screaming past us, and because we were
literally freezing, we spent less than 15 minutes
total at the peak, after which we started our descent.
See Pictures.  Do you recognize the mountain behind
me and Java?  That's Mount San Jacinto, were I was
there last weekend  :-)


Once everyone made back it back to camp; exhausted
weary, wearing thin smiles of satisfaction we all
agreed:  It was like a movie.  The second person up
Will, has traveled the world climbing mountains and he
said that our climb was one of the more grueling,
intensive final ascents he's ever done  - Pretty Cool!

Trip Summary:  2 Days.  16 Mile total trek.  5902 ft
elevation gain.  ~7500 ft total ascent.  13 out of 14
people, plus one dog, summited.  Once person went back
down from base camp due to altitude sickness.


OK so this message is much longer than I intended, but
it's not hard to get wordy about an awesome experience
that is so fresh in your mind.

Life is Good.  Enjoy it!