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[pct-l] Baden-Powell, Islip Saddle update



I'm hoping this information can help hikers who are in
Wrightwood right now (or later) contemplating
Baden-Powell.

I hiked over Baden-Powell on May 20th, leaving from
Grassy Hollow Campground at about 6am.  We (Tyvek and
I) left from Vincent Gap at around 7:30am and were the
first ones up that day.  We could follow the trail for
about 1.5 miles before losing it in the snow and just
turning and heading straight up.  There were a fair
number of footprints, but really all we needed to do
was just make sure we kept heading up and we'd get
there.  The snow was already soft at 8:30am or so and
remained so all day. But I never postholed all day -
it was just soft enough to make steps that held but
also to know that if you slipped it would catch you
(plus we were never on extreme slopes so i didn't feel
any danger).
We summited at noon and then took off following the
ridgeline out to Mt. Burnham and Throop Peak.  The
trail was under snow on the north side, but the south
side and much of the ridgeline were exposed and easy,
but slow, travelling.  
The peak after Mt. Hawkins has a register on it and we
were only the fourth to sign it this year.  We headed
down to Windy Gap, again just following the topo map
and ridgeline and occasionally seeing bits of the
trail.  It was windy at Windy Gap.  We wrapped around
to Little Jimmy Spring (which is an AWESOME spring)
and up to Little Jimmy Campground without incident. 
We left the campground following the dirt road (which
is just above the real trail) all the way out to where
it switches back - something like 1.1 miles?  Then we
caught the trail crossing the road and were the first
(as far as we could tell) to follow the remaining bit
of the true PCT from that dirt road down to Highway 2,
where we camped.  I think from Vincent Gap we did the
next 8 miles in 8 hours and did something like 14.5
miles that day in 13 hours.  so it was slow.

The next morning we went up and over Mt. Williamson
without incident.  There's a note at the beginning of
that section of trail warning of snow and ice, but we
encountered no such danger.  We did find a 75 yard icy
section at 7:30am on the north side (presumably what
the note was warning about?) but we were easily able
to just jump above it and walk on the dirt.


If you want to do this section, you can.  If you're
really nervous about snow, don't want to walk with
wet, cold feet all day, don't want to hike steep ups
and downs, or are not too worried about sticking to
the true PCT then maybe the road walk or desert trail
would be a good option.

Tyvek and I hiked it only with trekking poles (i only
had one and I didn't even feel a need for that).  We
know at least 6-7 people who did B-P the day of or the
day after we did and they all agreed, as far as I
know, that slow is a better word to describe the
experience than dangerous.


--Whuppin Stick

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