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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It was 67 on top of Table Mtn today in the San Gabriel Mtns; that is a lapse rate of 5.5F per 1000’ - pretty much the max possible rate under calm conditions I think.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Interesting heat wave for SoCal, the LA Basin is forecast to be hotter than the Valley or Inland Empire. That’s rare. The lapse rate is pretty steep, about 5F/1000’, & there’s no strong offshore winds that would cause adiabatic heating. So just elevation driven temp profile @weatherwest.bsky.social?

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I think if it were storming like that we’d at least see some flood advisories for the burn zones. Though my impression is that if it’s happening above 6000’, NWS LA isn’t too concerned about it (and to be fair there’s 12 million people in their forecast area, of whom almost none are in that zone).

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

NWS radar is even picking up these clouds as stationary thunderstorms. Not clear if any rain is really reaching the ground and there is a real dearth of weather stations in the San Gabriels. Basically if radar isn’t catching it no one knows what’s happening between the front range and the desert.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Those certainly aren’t the kind of clouds we’re used to seeing over the San Gabriels but for that atmospheric profile yeah this makes sense!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Another cloud deck catching it again!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

One of those sunsets that fades and then comes back, catching the clouds a different way.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Another great sunset and Baldy catching the last rays of sun below those clouds.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

There’s been some really strange cloud decks over the San Gabriels lately. And despite the high humidity (60 dewpoint) the lapse rate has been high, almost 5! It was 92 in Azusa and 60 at Table Mtn!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Not exactly the weather we were expecting for Table Mtn on Labor Day but we got prepared and toughed it out!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Some people say SoCal sunsets can’t be beat, but they probably just never woke up early enough

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

First picture, Baldy NE face. Second map, if you do want to see glaciated landscapes in SoCal, the San Bernardino Mountains have you covered! With their north facing slopes and 10000-11000 elevations, these little cirque glaciers fit the bill. Blue- cirques, red- moraines.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

If there were glaciers or permanent snowfields in the San Gabriels in the Ice Age, it would have been high on Baldy’s NE face. I could be convinced though the development of evidence like cirques and moraines is very poor.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Reminds me of “Death Valley in 49” - Manly talks about there being a legit snowpack at about 4500’ in the San Gabriels in February of 1850.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Still we can learn some things from this paper: Crystal Lake and San Gabriel Peak used to get snow in October, and accumulated a snowpack of several feet in the early 1900s! It’s rare for these elevations to get significant snow these days.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I kind of think this is the difference between amazing scientists and ordinary people like me- I am able to apply the rules of the system to a given situation; true vision is recognizing the patterns are telling you that you don’t actually understand the rules of the system yet!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Operating in 1926, William Miller didn’t have the framework necessary- plate tectonics- to understand the forces at work in the San Gabriels. The San Andreas Fault had only been conceptualized 20 years before, after the 1906 earthquake, and the power of landslides was also not as well understood.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This and the transform faults that crisscross the San Gabriels have resulted in a landscape of landslides and cliffs. And indeed Crystal Lake is understood to be dammed by a landslide, not a glacial moraine! This is also why the rock climbing in the Gabes is awful compared to the Sierra and Jacinto.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

So what is going on here to create such rugged terrain, and what is pseudo tarn Crystal Lake? The rapid uplift of the San Gabriels over the last 5 million years via compression at thrust faults has resulted in shattered rock masses and rapid erosion.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The top of Eaton Canyon is even lower, 5500. It strains credibility to think such low elevation south facing slopes of the San Gabriels could support glaciers when the Sierra did not. Surely if they had, we’d see even better evidence for glaciers on the north slopes, but we don’t.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This glacier would have had its source at 8000-8500 on the south facing slopes of Islip and west facing slopes of Hawkins - lower than the elevation of Whitney Portal and lower than the lowest glaciated slopes of the South Sierra. It’s alleged foot, at 4000, the floor of Owens Valley!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Pine Flat in particular has the shape we’d expect for a glacial cirque, with an alleged tarn (Crystal Lake) to boot. So how do we know Ice Age glaciation is very unlikely here? Well for one thing, the aspect and elevation don’t make sense:

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Here are a couple of the examples discussed in the article. The most deceptive is Pine Flat, now the site of Crystal Lake campgrounds (first picture). Snowflake = Snowslide Canyon, a great winter descent when it’s in. Second is Eaton Canyon, w a snowflake for the SE gully.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

This article is a great example of how science evolves, and how we can still learn from the past. As much as we’ve all dreamed of skiing San Gabriel Peak’s southeast gully, the evidence for glaciation in the San Gabriel Mtns is very weak, and it’s now thought the Gabes escaled Quaternary glaciers.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Ventura County remote mountain valleys are undefeated in the heat. 46F last night??

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

It might be hot in LA but it’s just another week of the world’s best summer weather at Table Mtn.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Have you heard the good word of Mt Marcus Baker Thought?

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

There’s always a thousand bad reasons I tell myself I shouldn’t go… and two really good reasons that I should.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

You belong among the wildflowers… You belong somewhere you feel free

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Grandview… high and lonesome in the Basin and Range… though I suppose not too lonely by the standards of those mountains!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Table Mtn, Los Angeles County, CA: the perfect summer climate

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Yesterday and today were another two days of reverse clearing for LA County and this is truly the blessed SoCal climate mode. Sunny at the beach to take the chill out of the sea breeze, cloudy in the San Gabriel Valley where it’s a little warmer and drier.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

The flip side of living in the foothills, where the marine layer can trap smoke and you occasionally get hot nights if you’re just above the inversion, is that a strong marine layer will get squeezed into honest to goodness precipitation, even in the summer.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

I made it to the top of the Colby Trail at the junction with Glendora Mtn Rd, which I’m too scared to try riding on. Maybe next time I’ll hit upper Colby to Glendora Ridge Motorway, the fire road on the ridge above Azusa!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Took advantage of some late season June Gloom to try a new mountain bike outing today - the Colby Trail in Glendora. This was a little more reasonable grade for my skills than Van Tassel Motorway and I made it about 1000’ vertical before I ran out of time. The Glendora volcanics outcrop here!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

Took advantage of some June gloom today!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

One thing I didn’t anticipate about mountain biking is how hard it is to keep control going *up* a steep grade but the physics of it makes total sense. With the bike angled up, almost all the weight is on the back wheel, so the front wheel pops up & it’s very hard to not have it drift to the sides.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

As if to drive that last point home, at my turnaround point, a much better biker cruised past me going down, with a quick “it’s steep” and then he was gone. In that area I could barely even keep it together going downhill.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

I made it a little further up Van Tassel Motorway this weekend but it’s so steep, I ended up pushing my bike up a few times because I couldn’t get going. It’s at the outer limits of what’s physically possible with my bike… and my skills.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Baldy was easily visible an hour ago now totally lost in the smoke

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Boyle Heights structure fire smoke plume from Van Tassel Motorway in Duarte, central San Gabriel Valley.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

After that, we decided to come up to Mtn High North to beat the heat. Table Mtn climate is undefeated in SoCal: last 7 days low temp 52, high 76, no humidity.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

After I bailed on Van Tassel Motorway, I headed up Azusa Canyon, which is a lot more gradual of a climb. Low flows in the river for the summer.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Also being out there in the south facing San Gabriel Mountain foothills at 1pm… well…

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

Goal for this summer is to get in good enough shape to mountain bike to the top of Monrovia Peak. It’s 5000’ vertical and I gassed out after 400’ vertical, so we have some work to do. These fire roads are just relentlessly steep.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

If I knew I was gonna be there I would have had skis ;)

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

On a holiday weekend it will especially Saturday night

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

All week it’s been clearing up everywhere around LA *except* for the clouds piled up against the San Gabriel Mountains and I’m so here for it.

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Table Mtn is such a great campground. Shade, few biting insects, breeze, rarely too hot or too cold. And Mountain High’s North Lodge for food!

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Transverse Dreams @transversedreams.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

One good fully on Baldy’s NW face. Lupines and snow flowers. While JPL is talking to space craft we were studying deep time looking at rock outcrops on Table Mtn.

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