[pct-l] Re: Fuller Ridge

[benschif at mac.com (Ben Schifrin)]

Yes. I started from the border Mon April 18, and got up to Cedar Spring 
late on Sun April 24. It had been raining, and even snowing, all day 
from Tule Spring. There was some snow on trees above ~6400'. I put 
screws in my shoes the next AM. Since I have never used crampons on any 
of the PCT in SoCal, it didn't even occur to me to bring them. This was 
all premature-- there were patches around Spitler and Apache. but 
nothing even worth putting my pole together for until the traverse 
under Antsell Rock. There was lots of deep snow across Tahquitz Valley, 
but it was still cloudy, cold and shady and I didn't break-through very 
much. The climb up to the Tram trail was mostly clear, as was the way 
to Marion Ridge, where I camped. It was mostly all snow from there 
around Deer Springs, since it is so shady. Most of the traverse to 
Fuller was in snow, so I simply traversed the hillside. It was warming 
fast on Fuller, so I broke-through a lot, but I wasn't worried about 
falls and slides, just draggin' my sorry ous out of my craters. Lots of 
new ice-rime and 2+ inches of new snow, down to about 6800'. Great 
below: lots of water, lots of chia and orange mallow, and I dried out 
quickly.
  As for navigation, the other part of your question: well, hard to 
answer, since I've done these stretches so often. But the 
terrain-control on your route is great, and you're never really at a 
loss for visibility. Bee-lining around snow was easy.

Good Luck!
-- Ben Schifrin

On Apr 29, 2005, at 12:35 PM, Heath Haggerty II wrote:

> Ben;
>
> Hi my name is Heath and I am leaving to tackle
> Sections b & c tomorrow morning. Did you really make
> it through Fuller ridge without the ice ax and
> crampons? How was the navigation? Cool, thanks for the
> info.
>
> Heath Haggerty
>
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