Skiing Orange County's Santa Ana Mountains!
Channel: Darshan Ahluwalia
Date: 2023-03-06

This recent end-of-February 2023 storm dropped snow in Orange County's Santa Ana mountains. But how much? Was there enough to ski?

The day after the storm passed through, on Sunday morning, February 26, I loaded my trusty steel gravel bike with my skis and rode up Harding Truck Trail to find out. I was hoping I would be able to start skinning at around 3500' but to temper my expectations, I figured by at least Four Corners at 4500' I should be able to ditch the bike and don the skis.

I ended up biking Harding Truck Trail only for about an hour and a half before there was enough snow to start skiing at 3150'. Since the Santa Ana's tallest mountains, Modjeska and Santiago Peak, are at 5500' and 5700' respectively, this meant I had 2500' vertical of skiing to enjoy! All in my backyard mountains in Orange County!

I skied down a portion of my favorite singletrack on Modjeska Peak, then went up to summit the mountain. It was full on winter conditions up there.

This was an epic day combining biking and backcountry skiing. I don't know if I'll have the chance to do this adventure again!