Don’t usually think of our sunny SoCal mountains as brooding but that’s what the NW face of Baldy is doing right now!

Incredibly there is still powdery snow on the northwest ridge above the trees.

Yard sale on Throop Peak

My kids and I love playing here since the stream flows all year. We built a stone shelter and dam last summer, and this storm washed it out to the desert. A great reminder of our impermanence without an Ozymandian time scale - even if the kids are not quite old enough to appreciate it yet…

Sheep Creek did indeed go yesterday, as it often does during big rainstorms. Alluvium builds up in the canyon in low energy events, flushes out in big ones. You can see the level of the mud flow a couple feet up on the sides, where the smooth well graded mud ends below the washed sand and gravel.

Decided to try for Baden-Powell today. Surprisingly the gate on the 2 at Big Pines was open but it was snowing all the way down to Mtn High East so I bailed, not wanting to risk heading up to Vincent Gap in a 2WD with chains.