[pct-l] Baden Powell Snow

[weathercarrot at hotmail.com (The Weathercarrot)]

Mr. Meadow Ed, who cooked us a fabulous meal last Sunday, writes:

<< Last week Weathercarrot and Dave F. were up to Baden Powell and hiked 
down
to Little Jimmy...I saw their phots and there is still deep snow in places.
The trail is patchy snow in places and i saw some 10 foot drifts in some
shady areas.  That snow will linger for weeks yet but will not pose a
problem for anyone hiking the trail...>>

On Friday, July 1st, Dave Fleischman and I hiked in from Islip Saddle to the 
top of Baden Powell and back again. We wanted to find out what the 
conditions were like and how much snow was still up there. Our first patch, 
at roughly 7,100 feet, was only about .7 up the hill from the trail head, 
and many more patches in minor avalanche zones well before (and below) 
Little Jimmy. At the campground itself, having heard about all the stories 
of the privy there being completely buried in May, we did indeed find two 
small patches right beside it, as well as huge amounts of trash strewn about 
all over the place, no doubt because of bears. Continuing south and up, it 
took a little while to reach out next snow, but in the last 2-3 miles before 
the summit, there was significant snow on the north side of the crest, with 
the higher north-exposure forest at about 80 percent snowcover. Of course, 
"significant" is a relative term, and I'm referring here to July 1st 
standards. The deeper snow was consistently in the range of 2-5 feet, with 
some spots along the crest up to ten feet, where the cornices would have 
been 1-2 months ago. About half the trail was still buried in the last few 
miles along the ridge. At the summit, the monument was fully exposed, with  
large patches of snow nearby. The only person we saw all day, interestingly, 
was Matt Maxon, who was doing an inventory of trail conditions. He had come 
up from Vincent Gap, and reported almost solid snow for the last mile or so 
in the north slope wooded switchbacks.

As a comparison to last season (which was somewhat below normal), there is 
much more snow overall as of July 1st of this year compared to what I saw up 
there in mid-May of last year, so by the time it gets to the same level, 
that'll be perhaps a 2 or 2 and a half month difference in the melt. Some of 
the depths in the avalanche shoots below the closed highway are reportedly 
still very deep, but I wasn't able to get down there and check it out in 
person. I would love to see if there's anything left by early September 
where it really piled up. I wouldn't be surprised.

After the hike, as we headed west on 2, we spotted a patch of snow next to 
the road at about 6,200 feet, which seemed to be at the bottom of a slide. 
But it was still remarkable to see snow in southern CA on July 1st at that 
low an elevation.....

One last observation - based on another hike I did near Saddle Junction 
several days before, and how much snow I found in the few miles south of 
there, it seems very likely that the San Jacinto range at 8 to 9 thousand 
feet received less snow this year in comparison to equivalent elevations on 
Baden Powell and Baldy..... but I've run out of e-mail time to describe that 
further......

wc

ps - I'm presenting my PCT DVD at the Yosemite Village visitor center 
theater Saturday (tomorrow) night at 9pm if anyone wants to see it on a big 
screen with great sound.......