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[pct-l] Snow in the San Felipe's



Hi All,

You know, when I left on Friday to hike from Mt. Laguna to Barrel 
Springs the last thing I expected was to be trudging through white-out 
conditions from gate 3 in the San felipe's to my car. But I'm getting 
ahead of myself. First, the facts:

Trail stats: Camped at Pioneer Mail Friday. There's a medium sized blow 
down across the trail just past the first picnic bench. Can't miss it. 
It is easily passed on the left. Pioneer Mail trough was full but frozen 
(woke up Sat. AM to 25?). Trail conditions to Scissors were good - a few 
small drainage issues on some corners but they're minor. Lucky 5 has 5 
1/4 gallons of water (not frozen) and a lovely note from Scott W and 
Savant. Rodriguez tank was full. The Scissors cache was empty. There 
were reports of damage, but here's what I found - a few broken gallon 
bottles were around, but that may have ben due to recent high winds and 
storms. The shelf and chairs were not damaged and were fully intact. 
However, the shelf is tipped onto its side, and is behind a large bush 
50' south of the gate before the first road crossing (coming north). 
There is no visible damage, so maybe the trail ratz laid it on it's side 
for the winter to minimize damage to it? If not, rest assured that the 
cache is still fully functional. I did not tip the shelf onto it's feet 
again in case its meant t be how it is right now. There was a 
slow-moderate flow of water in the San Felipe creek which runs under the 
bridge just north of the cache. At gate 3 in the San Felipe hills there 
were 12 gallons of water. And finally, the trough at Barrel Springs was 
full and flowing well. And snow covered! Which leads me to the fun part 
of the trip;

Trip report: I was graciously shuttled from Barrel Springs to Mt. Laguna 
by Warner Springs Monty (thanks again Monty!). I got dropped off around 
4:10 which only gave me 40 minutes of light. Nonetheless I headed north 
to Pioneer Mail and got there around 5;15, in the dark. I set up my bivy 
on the first picnic table, ate dinner and star gazed. Sat AM temps were 
25? and my water was partially frozen. Partly cloudy and a pretty stiff 
SW wind kept me walking briskly until around 9 AM. I know there are many 
hikers who don't particularly like desert hiking, but I'm not one of 
them. There is a rugged beauty to this section of the trail, and I 
enjoyed every step (brisk wind aside). Left P.Mail at 6:15 AM and 
arrived at Rodriguez tank for lunch, at 11:50. I got buzzed by some sort 
of warplane while I was packing up after lunch - it was only about 1000 
feet off the ground, and was mostly white with a bit of red at the wing 
tips. Very cool to see it that close. Got sprinkled on a bit heading 
toward Scissors, saw a rainbow up close, and made camp by 3:30. I 
decided to set up my bivy under the hwy bridge in case it rained Sat. PM 
(which it did).

Woke up Sun to clouds and 35?. Was hiking by 6:15 AM. I found it a bit 
strange to be hiking up the notoriously hot San Felipe hills in 
shorts/reed pants, zip T, dragonfly and seattle sombrero. I envisioned 
loads of hikers sweating up the grade and into/out of the endless 
drainages as I hiked up in the chill of the morning, contemplating 
wearing gloves and my Montbell thermawrap vest! Anyway, as I approached 
the second gate the rain started. It seemed to have a wee bit of snow in 
it but I didn't give it much thought. I stopped for lunch at gate 3 at 
11:30 in the rain. As I packed up I noticed it was turning to snow and I 
thought, wow, a bit of snow on a section of trail that's usually 
blistering hot! I wonder if there's enough coming down to call it a 
legitimate snowfall.

I only had to wait about 10 minutes to decide.

By noon I was in a blizzard. I'm not kidding. The snow came down fast 
and thick, and all I could see was about 100' of trail in front of me. I 
knew I only had 9.5 miles to the car. I had very little food and a very 
light pack so I decided to hit the afterburners and high-tail it to 
Barrel Springs. At this point I had added my Montane superfly raincoat 
and OR claw gloves to what I was wearing. Nonetheless, the wind came at 
me hard and fast, biting through my shorts/golite reed clad legs. 
Fortunately I was moving fast enough to keep pretty warm. Only when I 
stopped a few times did I realize how cold it actually was out there. I 
made those 9.5 miles in 2 hours 45 minutes (thanks in part to a 7 lb 
baseweight for the trip). When the snow let up a bit and I could see 
some terrain, the place looked beautiful. Unfortunately that didn't last 
long, and I went back to battling high winds, horizontal, wind-blown 
snow and near white out conditions most of the section. i couldn't 
believe how fast the snow was accumulating. Fortunately the PCT 
presented itself very well in those conditions and I had no trouble at 
all staying on the trail. I'd glance at my maps from time to time and 
check my compass regularly to make sure I was generally headed in the 
direction I was supposed to be.

I was pretty cold and tired when I reached the car having moved 
contiuously and at an accelerated pace for most of the previous 3 hours, 
but warmed up quickly. It was still snowing when I got to Barrel 
Springs, which I found pretty incredible. Turns out Mt. laguna got 7" of 
snow yesterday between 2 and 5 PM. I can personally validate the 
possibility of it, there was about 3-4" on the PCT as I passed over 
4700' between gate 3 and Barrel Springs.

What a trip!

Mike Maurer