San Jacinto Snowshoe Summit

View 3/26/11 San Jacinto Snowshoe Summit in a larger map

For those of you who don't have Google Earth as a browser plugin

everytrail.com graphs here

Determined to summit in the snow, I invited my friend Lee (who's in way better shape and has a ton of experience) to go with me snowshoeing for the day. We took the first tram up at 8am and made it to the summit by 12:15pm. A few technical difficulties aside, I felt I did alot better this week than last. Still, the altitude was definitely affecting me and there were many times I had to stop to let my heartrate come back down.

As good as it felt to summit, it was so ridiculously cold and windy up there that we were only up for maybe a minute before dropping back down the east side and it was pleasant.

Last week, I brought snowshoes but it turned out crampons would've been much more appropriate on the ice. This week, I brought crampons and snowshoes and didn't use the crampons at all.

There was a lot of fresh snow in the last week which made snowshoes more practical.

We were making great time at first; roughly 1.8 miles an hour, which in snowshoes is pretty good for me.

High winds...

Stopping to take in the view on the way up

Miller Peak, facing east

Some cool-looking tree. We stopped here for lunch on the way back down later.

Trudging up

Almost there!

Just below the summit. You can see which way the wind blows up here.

At the summit! Man it was freezing!

Trudging back down

We stopped by that cool tree and Lee got his camping stove out and melted some ice and made miso soup. It felt so good to have something hot to drink!

Hot miso soup!

We packed up and headed back. I thought we made pretty decent time, especially after my snail-paced return last weekend.

Once we got back down near the stream, the sky cleared up.

We made it back just in time to catch the 4pm tram back down.

The Stats

Total distance - 7.74mi
Hike start - 8:31am
Hike end - 3:37pm
Average Speed - 1.1mph
Moving Speed - 1.8mph
Actual hiking - 4:24
Stopped time - 2:42
Elapsed time to summit - 3:14 (6 miles)
Elevation - 8300ft - 10,800ft (2,500ft)