[pct-l] Snow, Sierras and 1977

[Bighummel@aol.com]

The "Kelty Kids" were named so for putting on a PCT thruhike demonstration of 
excellent Kelty gear for none other than the famous Dick Kelty himself, who 
joined a crowd of thruhikers in Weldon (the former kicking off point to the 
Sierra before Kennedy Mdws got a store and the trail was finished).  Carl, 
did Kelty ever use any of the information gained by your experiences with the 
gear in advertising or just for internal product improvement?

No snow up to 11,000 feet?  Hmmm, so you CAN make well educated early Sierra 
snow condition predictions based upon the snow survey info on the web and NOT 
make ill fated, poorly informed decisions based upon sporadic, hyped up 
reports like we have all been used to relying on.  

Late conditions will, of course, vary and throw your predictions off, i.e.: 
more snow from late storms or less snow from accelerated meltoff due to warm 
temps.  

However, this is an excellent tool that hasn't been available to anyone until 
the snow survey information was posted to the web in the last few years.  
Take advantage of it, it can save waiting in Kennedy Mdws too long waiting 
for the snow to melt or starting too late and suffering the heat, sparse 
water and the hurried pace to beat the snow in the Nth Cascades.

IMHO,

Greg "Strider" Hummel
* From the PCT-L |  Need help? http://www.backcountry.net/faq.html  *

==============================================================================