Perfect weather today to complete my 10th Peak of the SoCal Six Pack of Peaks (18 peaks) Challenge. Took the first tram up at 0800 (time due to holiday weekend. Temps were in the upper 30’s at Long Valley and never got above 50 throughout my hike.

**Quick note that all restaurants, the museum and one of the stores are closed for renovations through May.

There is still a significant amount of snow at the Ranger Station and of course throughout the hike. I donned my microspikes at the Long Valley Ranger Station. The trail itself was pretty well packed down early on. If you veer off the trail, even a few inches, you will be post holing. Snow is only between 8 and 24 inches throughout to the summit.

Shortly after passing Wellman’s Divide, I decided to put on crampons. Mostly just to gain more experience using them and wear my mountaineering boots. I wore them all the way to the summit. Although, as I was nearing the Hut, I was thinking to myself that I probably should have put on snowshoes for that last mile or so up. It was not packed and I was post holing a lot.

The summit is still covered in snow, so you can just go straight up and not have to worry about climbing rocks. There were only a few hikers at the summit. Two guys that were hiking together (they had spikes) and three young ladies killing the trail in snowshoes (they were all three upper sixties and on was mid-seventies). Wow!

I started down from the summit wearing snowshoes. That lasted about a half mile and I switched back to crampons. It was too slick for the snowshoes going down. On my descent I passed several hikers, none of whom I saw at the peak. Come to find out that most hikers (during snowy conditions like these) go straight up the slope right at the last switchback near Miller Peak. Go figure. I got off trail there because I was trying to (and did) follow the actual trail. There were no indications that anyone had gone this direction and, since I was breaking trail the entire way to the final .3 miles to the summit. On my descent I decided, since my route up was a bit precarious, I would just go straight down and skip the switchback route. Good choice! 

All in all it was a great experience. I was able to use all my gear (spikes, crampons, boots, axe, snowshoes, etc.) as planned. With that said, most hikers going up had microspikes. A few had snowshoes. A few had crampons. And three young Marines had no traction devices or polls at all. I watched one of them (on the descent) fall/posthole a few times as I passed them going down.