Timing Is Everything

Snow Creek isn't a viable route every year. The mountain needs the right amount of snowfall at the right times in the right places with the right temperature systems during our short SoCal winter. Thankfully, January and February made it clear that 2024 would be a solid year for an attempt.

We had wanted to send it at the end of March, but the entire month was unseasonably warm and wet. Every weekend from March until nearly the end of April saw a new storm system shut us down. By the time a favorable weather window opened for us, the average temps had warmed considerably and began to introduce instability into the snowpack.

In the week leading up to our climb, a heatwave settled on the southland. We watched the weather and snowpack carefully, and moved our start time back from 2am to midnight in order to mitigate as much avalanche risk as possible. The day before our climb, we moved it back even further to a 10pm start. We wanted to get out of the snow chute and top out on the summit before the sun began melting out the couloirs. It would turn out that this decision making quite possibly saved our lives.

The Approach

You can sum up the approach to Snow Creek with just one word: heinous.

Avoiding the Desert Water Agency property is easy but mandatory (see map). And the initial walk east across the flat wash isn't too bad. But as soon as you start climbing up to gain the ridge on the far side, things get difficult. Be prepared for miles of incredibly steep and dense bushwhacking in the dark. Two members of our team had scouted the approach on past occasions up to the chockstone, and I would recommend any party attempting this full route to do the same. Simply getting to the chockstone is an enormous achievement and will probably take up the majority of your hours. Things are still plenty difficult beyond it, but the travel is much more straightforward.

Note on the map: I've only included a few helpful markers for the approach in order to minimize human impact and preserve the wilderness of the route.

The Crux

We made it to the chockstone a little later than planned, but thanks to our 10pm start it was still dark. We scampered around the bottom of it by the light of our headlamps, trying to decide which route we would ultimately take to get above it.

The typical 5.5 slab section near the chockstone ended up being way too icy and beyond any of our risk tolerances, so we began to scout for the class 3/4 alternate a bit farther back down the drainage. Once we were pretty certain we found it, we had to make some committing moves to start climbing up. It's about 500' of terrible bushwhacking up (just when we thought we were done!) followed by a 200' descent down a rocky wet side canyon, where you'll pop back into Snow Creek above the chockstone.

Note on the map: The alternate we took is clearly visible on the map, climbing southwest from the chockstone marker and then east-southeast back into Snow Creek.

The Climb

The climbing from this point is pretty straightforward. The direction you go is obvious (up), and there are really only four navigational decisions to make at the following elevations (our choices marked in bold):

6500' - left to stay in Snow Creek (the right goes up Folly Couloir)

7500' - left or right

8400' - left or right

9100' - left or right

In general, move fast at the start. The chockstone essentially sits at the bottom of massive funnel, with all of the drainages above you coalescing at 6500'. Any slide that's triggered above that point has considerable consequence. The lower you are on the route, the more risk there is above. Use good judgment based on the sun and snow conditions and keep your eyes peeled for early signs of snow instability.

The sun was starting to peek out over the ridge above us, so we opted for the most direct way up to go quickly. Snow conditions were terrible after the warming weeks, and we were either post-holing or navigating wet loose avalanche debris the entire way. We had to hop onto the rock a few times, sometimes climbing over 100', to avoid waterfalls, bad snow bridges, or terrain traps.

At about 7,500', we spotted a roller ball and quickened our pace. It was an awful slog and we each took turns breaking the trail until we needed another person to take over. We took a few minutes rest every 1,000' or so.

During one of these brief breaks at 8,100', we witnessed a small wet loose avalanche in the next couloir over to our west. Its aspect put it in full sun, while thankfully ours was still in the shade most of the day. The slide was slow and not particularly powerful - it didn't even reach the bottom where our two routes converged several hundred feet below. But it still scared us and we knew we were playing on thin margins.

Thankfully the snow firmed up quite well above 9,000', but it was also steeper and icier. As we neared the summit, we heard an enormous roar down below us in Snow Creek. We couldn't see anything from where we were, but it was the kind of power that makes you feel a primal sort of fear. Snow Creek might have gone out for the season.

If we had started at midnight instead of 10pm, where would we be?

What if we had started at 2am like we originally planned?

I thought about this a lot as we stood there, exhausted on the summit, some 16 hours later. I thought about it on our easy walk down to the tram. I thought about it on the drive home. And I still think about it every time I'm in the mountains. Even sometimes when I'm just at home with my family.

I think an argument can certainly be made that maybe we should have been more patient and waited another year after the bizarre March weather. It is definitely a discussion worth having. However, we are responsible climbers with a lot of combined experience, and we were aware of these risks. We constantly assessed the route conditions for months leading up to our climb, and we continuously adjusted our plans until the day before. Ultimately, our decision making got us home safely. By how much we'll never exactly know.

Mountaineering is a game of risk management. You try to make all the right decisions to carve out all the possible risk wherever you can. Everything from your fitness to your gear choices, from proper fueling and hydration to choosing the right route at the right time - you are managing risk. If it is a factor within your control, you better take control of it, because your life very much depends on it.

Mountaineering is inherently pointless. We put ourselves in objective danger. We stress out our friends and loved ones. Why? For me, it's because I love it. I can't imagine a life where I'm not challenging myself moving through the mountains. It brings me a lot of joy, and a huge sense of both fulfillment and peace. It gives me an additional thing to live for that is outside of myself. And I like to think that, when I come back from the mountains, I am a better and more present person, partner, dad, and friend.