Great day today with my partner Robin. We met up at June Vail Park and carpool from there to Manker Flat. We arrived just before 5am and it was already a madhouse at the trailhead. We had another hike that was supposed to hike with us. We were to meet at 5am, but we didn't see him. We waited around until 5:20 and then decided to start walking.

There was plenty of snow and ice still at the trailhead and along the road to the trail. We manage pretty easily just wearing our boots. Once we hit the trail heading up to the Ski Hut, we put on our spikes and had a pretty easy trek to the hut.

The hut was packed with lots of eager hikers getting ready to head up Baldy Bowl. Obviously, from this point on it was crampons, ace, and helmet. It had been a while for me hiking in my gear, so I had a slow arduous climb. The snow was pretty hard but not too icy and following in the steps of previous hikers for part of the route made the climb easier. Robin on the other hand (training for Mount Rainier) was like an old pro. She made it to the summit probably 15 minutes or so before I did. I think it was about 9:15 or 9:30 when we summitted.

We made the choice to follow the Baldy Bowl Trail back down. As we descended to lower elevations the snow was quickly softening. Hikers were coming up in droves at this point. Several wearing only microspikes when they should have been wearing crampons.

Anyway, on our descent we ran into a few familiar faces. Leon Piper, a friend of Robin's. And Tim Medevitz from The Heros Project. Pretty cool to run into him on the slope.