Sunset Peak

23 April 1988

By: Eivor Nilsson

Leaders: Eivor Nilsson, Renee Spargur

A nice day for a spring hike - right?

Wrong. This turned out to be more of a winter hike than I have been on in a long time. I informed the participants at the meeting place, that morning, that we might have some rain judging by the clouds in the sky. We carpooled to Cow Saddle and started up the dirt road. It was cold but not windy or rainy. About half way to the peak it started to snow, very light at first, and it did not last on the ground. The snow increased as we got to the peak, and by then it was no longer melting on the ground. A few people who were on their first Sierra Club hike were not adequately dressed for this kind of weather. So Renee and I dug into our packs and came up with extra clothing (mittens, hats, etc.) for them to use. We could see absolutely nothing, the visibility was about 30 feet, so we decided on a quick 15 minute lunch break, and before everybody got cold we started down again. It was snowing heavily all the way back down to the cars. The trail was completely covered by an inch and a half of snow, and so were the cars. We started back down on Glendora Mountain road at 12:30PM and it was several miles before the snow turned to rain. The participants all seemed to enjoy this unusual hiking weather and some said that it was a real thrill to be hiking in falling snow. Those brave people were: Mary Marketto, Valerie Armand, Joaquin Valadez, Jan Hartsell, Bill Tryon, Nancy Hedlund, Anne Handbury, Sharon Levin, Shelly Martin, Sharon Rust, Arlene Waller, Mark Ackand, Neal Pendleton, and Renee Spargur.