Winter Adventures

Today I had reserved a tubing ride on the slopes of Mt. Baldy for Cass and myself. Mt. Baldy is wonderfully named mountain town, wilderness area, and winter sport resort location about 60 miles from us. 

When I awoke this morning, I noticed an email that came in before 5 am. It was a refund from the Mt. Baldy tube rental folks: weather was going to be too inclement. Rain.

After dropping off Camille at daycare, we went up to Mt. Baldy anyway, hoping to find some snow to play in. It was drizzly and the road up to the summit was pocked with rockslide rocks, and eventually I turned back and parked at the Ice House Canyon lot.

Years back Corrie and I hiked the Ice House Saddle, the longest hike originating at this particular parking lot. Today Cass and I started off on the hike as the drizzle started to gain some volume:

I hadn't made sure that Cass had his skullcap, or his jacket, so I gave him my scarf and my Jameson (Whiskey) cap, and off we went.

The trail had tree coverage, as they nearly always do, but here instead of offering protection from rain, the coverage amplified the rain by dropping big-ol' droplets of water.

Some spots looked more picturesque in person than they appear in the pictures. The one below of Cassius and the the creek had much more vivid oranges in person, as the autumn foliage had yet yielded to the newly minted winter:

Eventually having gone for about an hour up the path, and with the weather worsening, we stopped again, discussed returning, and headed back to the car.

After lunch in Claremont we headed home and finally got into some warm, DRY clothes.

Someday soon we'll hit up some snow.