It was also necessary to write the Palm Springs Water Company, P.O. Drawer 33, Palm Springs and ask permission to park our second car on their Snow Creek property. This is necessary as both the access road and the area around the road are posted as private property. The road to the Water Company property has in the past been a little difficult to find but now the turn off is marked with a sign just before entering the little community of Snow Creek.
After parking our car near the caretaker's house, we met three climbers from San Diego who had decided that the weather was too threatening for climbing the peak that day. They wished us luck as we set out.
From the road head at 2,000 feet we climbed up to the small plateau between Snow Creak and Falls Creek, and proceeded along it for a little more than an hour. At about 4250 feet we descended into Snow Creek Canyon, at a place called the Narrows. The descent involves a loss in elevation of about 150 feet. Starting up the moderate]y brushy canyon we soon encountered the first waterfall. We climbed around it on the right side, and found later that nearly all the falls in Snow Creek Canyon are easiest to negotiate on the right side.
Forty minutes after entering the canyon, at about 4600 feet, we came upon a large cascade which we decided to climb around rather than climb over. We scrambled up a shallow chute to our right and detoured up from the canyon bottom, finding the only bad brush whacking of the climb. 25 minutes later we had climbed to 5100 feet, where we dropped back into the canyon bottom, having bypassed several falls and cascades. We encountered several short third class pitches in the lower part of the canyon while climbing over the many falls, but found it unnecessary to use a rope. However, it would be advisable for all parties to carry a rope for emergency use.
We climbed onto the long snow slope in the canyon at about 5300 feet and were on snow nearly continuously from here to the summit, 5500 feet above. At 5800 feet, the last major falls in the canyon were encountered