[pct-l] (no subject)

[spiritbear2k@xxxxxxxxxxx (Ginny & Jim Owen)]

So I arrive in Kennedy Meadows in early June.  I don't suppose there
is Internet access there to check on the snowpack conditions so how do
I know when it is OK to proceed?  Is there a ranger station nearby with
trail condition information?  Do I just start hiking until I run into
the
snow and then make a decision?  Do all the hikers just stare at each
other
until some brave soul starts up the trail? :-)

Radar

******

The trail grapevine will give you the general concensus about trail
conditions ahead, (whether truth or just rumor) and if there are hikers
ahead of you you can call the PATC from KM or Lone Pine and ask for the most
current conditions if the hikes ahead of you have contacted PATC to report
current conditions.  We did that regularly when we were on the trail and
found that the phone message was updated regularly, at least early in the
season. it would talk about 50% snow cover or 75% snow, etc.

Jardine talks about using Cottonwood Pass as your gauge - the trail from KM
to Cottonwood is pretty easy and there are no high passes there.  If there
is snow at Cottonwood, the snow in the Sieras will be bad and it might be a
good idea to detour to Lone Pine for a few days (assuming the road is open).

A lot depends on your experience with snow and your tolerance for dealing
with hazardous situations.  Even in a really high snow year, some people
will continue regardless of conditions.  Others will opt to skip the worst
sections or walk around or flip flop. And even in a low snow year, if you
are in the Sierras in early June, you can find yourself in some very scary
situations.

We hiked in a low snow year in the southern Sierras, normal in the middle
and high in the north.  We had had snow at Fuller Ridge(one indicator of the
type of snow year you are having) but it wasn't too bad. Highway 2 was open,
though there was still quite a bit of snow on Baden Powell. We had left
Campo early and arrived at KM on June 1.  When we left KM we had no snow on
the trail up to Cottonwood Pass, which is where Jardine says you can judge
whether or not the snow levels are high or low.  We thought we were home
free.  Turned out that we weren't quite that lucky.  While generally the
snow was only for a few miles on each side of the passes, that still made
for some very bad crossings as the cornices and ice chutes were still there.
  There were long stretches of snow on the ground, but most of the walking
wasn't that hard, except at the actual pass.  Worse was that the snow was
melting rapidly (except the day it snowed on us) and so the river crossings
were really a hazard.  We watched a hiker get swept away at Evolution Creek
and we almost lost it there too.  A day later we did get swept off our feet
at Bear Creek.  (We all survived, but it was a really hairy couple of
minutes.)  We talked to two hikers who had to do ice axe self arrests, one
twice.  One hiker slipped off a log and was trapped into the log jam.  She
was badly bruised, but made it out with some help.  For most of us, the
rivers were much worse than the passes since even gentle little streams
became raging torrents while we were ther. With my fear of falling, I was
frequently scared for the stretch from Forester to Sonora Pass.  After that,
no problem -- but by then, it was summer.

The main difference between a high snow year and a low snow year isn't that
the risks of a fall in a high snow year are that much greater -- you can
fall anywhere, even at Goat Rocks in August, if you catch the snow at the
wrong time of day -- but that the snow lasts so much longer.  Instead of
hiking on snow for 5 or 10 miles at a time, with 5 or 10 mile respites, you
will be hiking on snow for more continuous stretches - 20 miles or more.
This gets exhausting, especially if the snow is softening in the afternoon.
The risk in the Sierras is that it will slow you down so much that you will
run out of food before your food drop.  In some ways, high snow can be an
advantage because if the streams are covered with snow and ice, you don't
have to figure out how to ford them.  I remember Muir Pass, where we were on
snow for a solid 6 or 7 hours, we didn't make big miles that day.  We had
friends who hiked in '95 -- one said he was glad he did it that way and
would rather hike in a high snow year than a low snow year.  Another friend
who hiked in '95 said he had to deal with snow every week on his hike.  He
just sounded tired -- and early snows in the Cascades sent him home 30 miles
short of the border. But he still had a good hike.

Ginny

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus