Schnee in Südkalifornien   22299
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1 Jean Peak
2 Direction San Jacinto Mountain
3 Lance
4 Miller Peak
5 Cornell Peak
6 Direction Joshua Tree NP

Details

Location: Slope of Mt. San Jacinto (2770 m)      by: Christoph Seger
Area: United States      Date: 2016-02-26
It never rains in Southern California is not true for the high rising peaks neighboring the San Andeas fault line - the San Gabriel, San Bernadino, San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains. The latter ones being part of the Peninsular Range system.

The San Jacinto Mountains are flanking the Palm Springs area and allow to sneak away from the summer heat or - in winter time - to enjoy plenty of snow.

Whilst I visited Palm Springs for a meeting it was natural to me to visit Mount San Jacinto State Park and Wilderness (part of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument). The Palm Springs Arial Tramway allows to pass the steep cliffs of the range with an almost 6000 ft elevation gain.

Mt San Jacinto with its 10834 ft (3302 m) seems to be easily reachable from the tram station at about 8500 ft. Of course I failed and I need to go again.

Why did I fail? I went up during the week (Friday), was almost by my own. I followed a local guy, the only one hiking the peak on this day (Lance, see picture) who told me that he was on his "cardio day" doing only a slow pace (which was fast enough). Since almost no tracks were visible on the unmarked wilderness terrain and the snowcover was impressive I decided to follow his route. Of course - as a local - he did not take the regular trail but the "Sid Davis Route" through Tarmack valley. Even in the patches without snow there was hardly any trail visible. Further up the mountain we had to cross bolder fields, deep snow fields and this "green stuff" you can see. No, this is not something like Preiselbeer-Büsche, this is more like Latschengewirr. Lance did comment that it is quite late in the year and that usually all these obstacles are covered under snow.

So I could follow Lance until about 3000 m on the quite steep final slope of this "hill". It was of course steeper than the original "Route" because Lance did fail to meet this path - he just went up straight. Hence I did quit because being quite heavy I broke through the Harschdeckel at every second to third step. And the snow was deep, really, really deep. You can ask now ... why did not you leave earlier? Quite easy answer - the first tram up was running at 10:00 am !!

Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn: Ein HERRLICHER und ABENTEUERLICHER Bergtag für jemanden wie mich und beim nächsten Mal wird das Fluggepäck für Palm Springs um meine Schneeschuhe bereichert ....

Technisches:
Nikon D800, Carl Zeiss Distagon T* 2.8/21 ZF.2
HF RAWs (kein Stativ) um 12:12 MEZ, 1/400, f/16, ISO 100
RawTherapee, PTGUI, Gimp (kein Crop).

Comments

Klasse Wolkenspiele und bis auf die etwas sonderbaren Bäume könnte das auch irgendwo in Europa sein...

Beste Grüße,
J
2016/04/06 08:44 , Jörg Engelhardt
Kaum zu glauben...

VG
Gerhard
2016/04/07 16:54 , Gerhard Eidenberger

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Christoph Seger

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