[pct-l] How do the passes compare?

[Julian Plamann]

Miner,

I just got to Mammoth Lakes and here was my experience:

Pinchot is pretty straight forward. Snow going up and down, but nothing
extreme. I'd just try to be done with the pass by 1PM to avoid too much
postholing.

Mather was harder than I expected. The snow when I hit it 5 or 6 days ago
was a 45 degree angle covering all the switchbacks up and down. Nobody even
attempted to walk across it. Everyone just scrambled up the talus all the
way up and then scrambled down the other side. Once I learned that was the
best way to approach it, it was more straight forward.

Glen gets icy in spots so I'd try to avoid it until after the sun has been
up for a while. (try to do it after 7:30AM and before 1PM)

Muir was something like 5 or 6 miles of snow when I hit it, but very gradual
up and down. If you do it too late, you'll posthole and it will take 5 or 6
hours to do the pass. If you do it early (before noon) you may even be able
to do the whole pass in 3 or 3 1/2 hours. Nothing really steep or icy to
worry about.

Any other passes were a piece of cake in comparison to those.

There should be significantly less snow when you hit them, so the conditions
will be even better.



On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Sean Nordeen <sean at lifesadventures.net>wrote:

> As someone who came over Forrester Pass on Sunday and hit the pass peak
> around 2:40pm, I experienced postholing on both sides including up to my
> thigh a few times.  Now, I realize that things would have been better had I
> gotten over the pass by noon but what I went through was hard on my ankles
> and my right knee.
>
> Now that I'm in Independence and will be returning to the trail on
> Wednesday morning, I'm curious how the other passes will compare to what I
> encountered on Forrester.  Traditionally, which passes are the worse ones?
>  At least they will have a few days to melt off more.
>
> By the way, I found the snow level south of Kearsarge to really start
> around 11,500ft (according to my altimeter watch) with thick patches rapidly
> turning to solid snow a little further up except on some steep or really
> exposed areas.
>
> -Miner
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