meeting everybody in cypress at 6:30am (i woke up at 5am), we threw our gear in pam's X5 and headed for palm springs. we arrived at the tramway just before 8:30am, but the ranger told us they were still scraping ice off the cables, so we used this opportunity to grab some breakfast and some boots for heidi, since she was ill-equipped in her toms to make the journey. when we returned to the tram at 10:15am, it was all systems go.
even though we were one of the early arrivals, the tram was backed up due to the holiday crowd, so we were stuck with an 11:40am time. in ideal conditions, the roundtrip would take 5-6 hours, so we agreed to trek as far as we could until 2:30pm, then turn back so we while there was still daylight. to the left, a quick view from the parking lot...with the pressure of us having to make time now off, it allowed us to enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery and take in the winter wonderland of mount san jacinto. and we're off!
at about 2:15pm, we found a protected area amongst the trees - i even spotted an igloo! - and broke for lunch. this was a good time for me to bust out cookies from diddy riese that i picked up the night before for the group. taison also had a nifty thermos from REI that kept things piping hot, so all of us enjoyed some green tea in the snow...
we made it back to the ranger station around 5pm - right about the time they were assembling help to look for a missing skier who got trapped in the snowstorm and didn't make it back saturday night. luckily, he was found alive around noon on monday, so crisis was averted...
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