Today we had a housing inspection. That’s one step closer to buying a house, I imagine? Anyway, there was plenty of snow there, so, it’s time to talk about snow, right?
Nathan and Jason were going skiing at Mt Baldy, and I decided I wanted to go outside as well! So I took the opportunity to go with them, but to try out snowshoeing up in that area. I rented some snowshoes the day before, and that morning we drove out to the mountain. It was really quite lovely, with a lot of snow decorating all the area. We were able to park fairly close to the ski area, and then took the lift up. I’d never been up the Baldy lift, so that was kind of cool in and of itself. It was a pretty long ride up, and it was fairly cold, but there were some great views, and it was really spectacularly clear and beautiful up top.
Welcome to Mt. Baldy
Once we got up there, there were a lot of people milling around, and I split from Nathan and Jason, saying we would all meet up at the food building in a few hours. I headed off north, more or less, seeing to where I could walk without interrupting skiers. I took off down a cat track, but then managed to find a place where I could just cut straight up a hill. So, I walked up the hill, and first went past an area where a bunch of old chair lifts, and a fuel truck, and some other industrial detritus was buried under the snow. I then made it up to a ridgeline where I could see over the north side of the hill, and all the way to the snow-capped sierras in the distance. Around me, the sky was so blue, and the trees caked in snow and ice, making for incredibly sharp color contrasts. Most of the time, it was so bright that I just shot in black and white, since everything else got blown out.
The one chair lift up.
Truck against an almost painfully blue sky
After getting to this top area, next to what I guess is some sort of reservoir in the summer (a large plastic lined pit), I headed back down to meet up with Nathan and Jason. It had felt a lot longer getting up than it took getting down! I was at the dining area before them, and grabbed some seating and food. They showed up after a while, and also ate, and then they went out to ski a bit more, and I headed back around on the cat track. I didn’t find any more good places to walk up, so I ended up sitting on a stump in the sun for awhile, and enjoyed the light, and watching people ski down the various paths to the main area. It was really really pleasant. After that, I headed back and met up with the guys. Jason and I rode the chair back down, and got to watch Nathan ski the main gully down, which he was excited for since apparently it doesn’t usually have enough snow to support such an operation 🙂
Rimed iced on the ski lift
Nathan riding all the way down!
