On various adventures past I vaguely recall noticing a possibly-skiable line through Baldy Bowl’s east buttress—but somehow I never got around to actually trying to ski it. Maybe it wasn’t filled-in enough? Maybe it looked too dodgy? Who knows. In any case, on Sunday that intriguing z-shaped bit of white once again caught my attention, so I pointed it out to Al Preston as we were crossing the bowl en route to West Baldy. This time, happily, something clicked. We decided to check it out on our exit. When it has snow, “Schizo Alley” (as named on this old CalTech Alpine Club map) is actually ..read more

With weekend snow levels forecast to dip as low as 4000′, it was possible to believe there’d be cold April powder turns in the mountains this weekend. The reality was quite a bit wetter. Temps at the base of Waterman hovered around 31 degrees yesterday, but with super-saturated air, there was standing water everywhere, making for a very soggy day. That’s SoCal skiing, I guess. Waterman had maybe two inches of fresh slushy powder by 1 p.m. I heard more fell later that afternoon, though I doubt it got much colder. I was hoping to climb and ski Kratka (in bottomless powder, perhaps?), but Caltran ..read more

While the west side of the San Francisco Peaks is inarguably beautiful, I tend to think of it as the boring part of the mountain. The west side includes the Arizona Snowbowl, and as you’d expect on a volcano, the terrain is quite modest. Not so the mountain’s Inner Basin—literally the interior of the volcano, formed when the mountain blew its top (or perhaps just collapsed) somewhere in the vicinity of 200,000 years ago. You get a peek at these lines from the top of the Snowbowl’s Arizona Gondola (formerly the Agassiz Chairlift), but until you crest the rim of the basin, you really don’t get a ..read more

Dave Braun and I took a spring break trip to Flagstaff, Arizona this past week to ski some of the big lines on my hometown mountain, the San Francisco Peaks. Initially I was concerned there wouldn’t be enough snow, and then a series of late-season storms hit, so the concern shifted to too much snow—or rather, too much instability. As it was, we worked our way around the volcano over the course of the week, trying to time the aspects for snow quality and safety. Ultimately we didn’t get to ski everything I was hoping for, but we did enjoy a fine sampling of the Peaks’ ridiculously good backcoun ..read more

Yesterday I took my daughter to ski Kratka Ridge, one of Southern California’s “lost” ski areas. It was her first official day backcountry skiing in Southern California. I do think Kratka (a.k.a. Snowcrest) is by far our best area for beginning and introductory touring—and it would be an excellent choice for powder-stash skiing as well if you could get to it during storms (alas: you can’t). What makes Kratka ideal? Effortless access (you park at the base), an abundance of gentle rolling terrain, a perfectly north-facing aspect, no possibility of getting lost, and plenty of adventure. Aim west ..read more

Here’s Matt D earning his handle in Wright Mountain’s Heath Canyon. 8505′ Wright Mountain is the highest point along Blue Ridge, which we traversed yesterday from Mountain High East. The Blue Ridge traverse is a fun and low-impact tour until you get to Wright Mountain, at which point maybe the easiest exit would be to ski down into Acorn Canyon (I haven’t done that, so buyer beware). Last year Matt and I descended Wright Mountain’s northeast ridge to conclude our traverse of the San Gabriels. This time, we decided to try Heath Canyon. Wright Mountain has two prominent north-facing canyons feat ..read more

As far as I can tell this past storm put rain on the Waterman Crest and not much else, but there is still a great deal of snow up there from the big February storm. Maybe an inch fell at the top of the mountain, which makes for yet another warm and underperforming SoCal storm. That said, coverage at Waterman is impressive from top to bottom—easily enough to open the lifts for skiing, if they’re still in the skiing business. The road situation remains the usual Caltrans gate lottery, with the added spice of an not-so-ambiguous LA County closure order on the Upper Big Tujunga bypass needed to ge ..read more

In the aftermath of the giant February 2023 storm, which put snow at unusually low elevations throughout the San Gabriels, I urgently wanted to ski Islip’s south face before it melted out, but Highway 2 and the 39 stayed closed all winter, so there was no reasonable way to get there. Islip’s south face is readily visible from the 210 freeway near Azusa as a prominent, inviting, wide-open snowfield on the Angeles Crest. Islip’s summit tops out at 8251′, and the south face, as you might imagine, faces south, so let’s just say this is a Southern California line that doesn’t see too many ski desce ..read more

Not Fast is my guess as to when the 2 will open. Here’s a look at the Angeles Crest Highway about a mile and a half east of Islip Saddle, just absolutely buried in snow. Dave Braun and I dropped down to the road from Mount Islip on Saturday, and then climbed back up to Windy Gap to get home. The good news is there will be snow up there for a long time—if you can get to it ..read more

Following this latest atmospheric river/bomb-cyclone storm, and its record-setting rainfall totals, I have a new appreciation for what the Army Corps of Engineers accomplished in the Los Angeles Basin in the late 1930’s. Since the storm began on Saturday, a truly massive amount of water fell across Southern California (UCLA saw nearly 12 inches of rain in 48 hours). Yet the basin’s floodwater infrastructure did its job. We did not see people floating down Los Angeles boulevards in canoes. We did not see fields of homes and businesses submerged in water. But perhaps wait a moment before you fee ..read more