A friend and I climbed the North Face from Snow Creek some 34 years ago. This 9600' ascent started in the desert summer and finished in the dead of winter. Then a 6 mile hike to the top of the tram.

Trip report     or try this

Sorry the trip report is crude, but this was easy to do.

Snow Creek is the fenced and guarded catch basin for Palm Springs water, and the owners are naturally quite protective. Back in 1980 you could request permission to enter, and if you were nice (or sneaked over the fence at night), you could do it. Later, you couldn't get permission at all, and the area was patrolled at night by a pair of vicious Dobermans.

I think now you can still do the climb, but you must enter the chute high on the route.

I feel lucky to have this in my climbing past, much like the long off-limits Popocatepetl, which I was able to climb several months later.

Today I sent my slides in to be digitized, and will upload them when I get them back. Probably a couple of weeks.

Last edited by Bob R; 04/01/14 06:18 AM.