This past week has been a rare stretch of almost continuous rain/snow that is still going on now. We had a single day break from the rain on Sunday, 2/26 so a buddy of mine and I decided to hike Mt. Wilson and hopefully summit before the snow melted away. We were only expecting a light dusting of snow as we rarely get any snow at all on these low (5K elevation) mountains. But boy were we caught off-guard.
Somewhere around halfway through the hike, we ran into the thin snow we were expecting, but it got deeper as we progressed. At some points on the trail, the powdery snow was at least a foot deep. We also had to get around so many fallen trees and branches on the trail. Unfortunately, the conditions got too bad for us. We did not have snow shoes on, socks were getting soaked, no snow tips for our hiking poles, and the trail was getting too hard to follow.
We went as far as about a mile past the bench, and I'd estimate about 1 more mile from the summit, and were keeping pace with a few other more seasoned and prepared groups. This was our first attempt at Mt. Wilson while they had done it many times before. When they decided conditions were just too sketchy and it was time to turn back, we figured it was the right move as well.
We didn't quite summit but it was still a very enjoyable hike for us, so I decided to log it anyway and share. We're not going to count this in our 6-pack challenge and will definitely come back to conquer Mt. Wilson another time.
Responses
Thanks for sharing your report of the trail and the snow. It still sounds like you had a beautiful hike.