What an eventful day. A day in which I thanked my lucky stars that I both invested in a Winter Skills course and tackled Fuller Ridge with the correct equipment.

It started with an unpleasantly cold and misty morning. I didn’t get up early; early is good in the heat to get some miles in but here I’d rather the ice softened a little!

Several of us discussed whether this was a good day to proceed. A couple I met yesterday had no spikes so I tried to subtly suggest they should drop down to Idyllwild. Another was going to wait to see which way the weather went. I downloaded a forecast via satellite and it didn’t look too bad. So I set off, and I’m so glad I did.

For the first two-thirds of the day I met no-one and used my crampons pretty continuously, sometimes with the axe. I didn’t like being alone in the conditions so was very pleased to meet Noelle and Steve who I’d met previously on the trail. They had microspikes and walking poles.

I went on ahead and soon met some challenging terrain and was concerned they might find it tricky with just spikes, so waited until they caught up and decided to stick with them. Occasionally I kicked new steps in an attempt to make passage easier.

However, it wasn’t enough and Noelle slipped and slid 15 feet down a very steep incline and luckily steered towards a bush which brought her to a halt. Thankfully she was not hurt but clearly in shock.

Now Steve couldn’t help, he had spikes too. So I descended to her and used my axe plunged into the ground repeatedly to give her a solid point to push herself out from under the bush and get almost upright.

The slope was too steep to her to ascend so I again employed the axe to cut her a sequence of steps, one at a time, and help her onto each one. After about 20mins we were back on the path. Noelle was clearly in shock but she did marvellously well to summon the strength to get back to the trail.

There were more sketchy sections ahead so to reassure I went first and cut some more steps with the axe to make sure no further slides occured.

We were all relieved and happy to reach the camp spot.

I was happy that the wonderful training of Glenmore Lodge allowed me to avert a call to the emergency services and help someone out. I feel I’ve paid back Austin for staying with me until I got a new filter.

It’s great that we all look out for each other on this trail.

I’m now whacked. Night night 😀