[pct-l] To be early or not at Kennedy Meadows?

[Bighummel@aol.com (Bighummel@aol.com)]

My guess is that you would have to leave now from Kennedy Meadows to have any 
chance of beating the high water at some of the big crossings.  Leaving, as I 
suggest in a couple of weeks, unfortunately, will likely put you in the 
middle of the high water runoff.  In a month, maybe you will be on the 
backside of the runoff, however, it might be just as bad or worse, depending 
upon precipitation, temperatures, etc. between now and then.

As you can tell, leaving early from Kennedy Meadows carries some risks and is 
basically a crap shoot that no late storms are going to significantly reverse 
the situation.

Over the last two weeks most of the Southern Sierra snow survey sites exhibit 
meltoffs of about an inch per day!  This is a lot and will put large amounts 
of water running off, especially since snow densities are in the mid to high 
40% range.

The decision then is;

- Early (now or sooner) = less runoff, less mosquitos, fewer bears, potential 
difficult pass crossings.

- June 1 = more runoff, more mosquitos, risk of bears, easier pass crossings

- June 15 = more runoff, massive mosquitos, risk of bears, easy pass 
crossings

- July 1 = easy creek crossings, massive mosquitos, high risk of bears and 
regulations, easy pass crossings and likely snow in the North Cascades 
because you sat around Kennedy Meadows too long drinking down those Sierra 
Coolers!

YMMV, IMHO, based upon highly scientific and detailed analysis of 
questionably bogus information,

Greg