Mount Tom

11-Jul-92

By: Bill T. Russell

Eighteen of us met at 0700 at the aspen grove that is about 0.5 mi below the locked gate on the old mining road to Horton Lakes. We drove most of the cars to the gate and then hiked to Horton Lake by 1000 and made camp. We had planned to climb Basin Mtn on Sat and Mt Tom on Sun but because the weather looked somewhat threatening, Duane suggested and all agreed that doing Mt Tom first was better. One person remained in camp and the rest of us hiked up the old road to Hanging Valley and then up the SW ridge to the summit. We descended by the western scree chute to the Tungstar mine and then by the road back to camp. Bill Banks signed out to do his usual high speed climb and we then split into a fast group of eight and a slower group of eight. In the late afternoon, the weather deteriorated and we had some rain and very strong wind gusts.

There was some rain during the night and Sun morning, as we emerged from our tents, the clouds were low and threatening. All agreed that attempting Basin would be unwise so we packed up and hiked out with sprinkles on the way. The weather was part of tropical storm Darby that brought rain to Los Angeles. It rained heavily from time to time on the drive home.

Mt Tom has a SPS cyl container and a good SPS register book left in 8/87 that is 80% full. We left an additional new SPS book. Recently it was reported that there were several old full books and that the container could hold no more. I carried a large can to correct this situation but someone has removed the old books. I hope that they show up and are carried back to Mt Tom where they belong. Participants were Bill T Russell, Patty Kline, Devra Wasserman, Gustave Stroes, Duane McRuer, Pete Dogget, Dan Richter Steve Hiebert, David Russell, Paula Peterson, Greg Gerlach, Tom Rholoff, Steve Nardi, Bruce Peterson, Eric Siering, Don Croley, Bill Banks and Asher Waxman