Eager to max out one of LA’s rare and rad snow days, and to show off my awesome new hat on the slopes, I leapt out of bed early, bolted my coffee, bundled up, hoisted my toboggan, and headed off in search of LA’s deepest powder.

Braving near white-out conditions without chains; laughing at ice sheets; defying possible avalanches or mudslides, the View is in quest of LA’s white stuff. Base camp is the Hansen Dam. So tie on your cask of brandy; and strap on your snowshoes, Mrs. Donner: it’s Mendenhall Peak Or Bust!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Above: The sagebrush at the bottom is under my feet on the south ridge; then there are the tops of the oak trees way down in the canyon bed; then the various layers revealed by the San Gabriel Fault Scarp on the north ridge; this is topped by the “remnant former terrain;” then rise the triangular foothills. And highest of all, the snowy Mendenhall Ridge, the uplift of which, created all the land forms.