We started at South Fork TH on Jan 27, 2018. Walked in running shoes up to Dry Lake, although last mile was pretty much all on snow. Prior to that long patches of snow on Northern aspects. Started skinning up at Dry Lake, which is all covered in snow. SG slopes looked pretty good from Dry Lake. Lots of snow everywhere. Went up the middle couloir on the NW slope of San Gorgonio. The snow was mostly very hard or just ice. We tried the trees: same thing. Got up to 10,500 ft and turned back. We were running out of time and it was getting very icy. We had ski crampons, but no boot crampons. Ski down the couloir was okay: hard pack bounded on both sides by ice. Later on when we turned into the trees it was pure survival skiing: breakable crust, hard pack, patches of powder, heavy snow, and hard ice all intermixed.
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