Trip Report: Over Piute Pass to Humphrey's Basin

[Harlen]

Thanks Paul.

[Harlen]

Thanks Paul, that's food for thought. My Scarpa 2's were killing me on the Kearsarge to Shepherd trip! Better plastic boots are my great desire for next winter's travels.

[SSSdave]

Turquoise aqua color of snow ponds has always fascinated this person. Very nice image of the Muriel edge so with Wolf Bear Lizzie and Humphreys. One will note that color is more saturated where the pond is apparently deeper. Pure water as is the situation with such snow melt, is colorless. However water strongly absorbs longer sunlight wavelengths of light, ie red, yellow, green, more so than the short blue wavelengths that are scattered in all directions including up back above the water. At the same time, much full spectrum sunlight reaches the highly reflective shallow snow/ice pond bottom and combines with the scattered blue creating a bright mix between white and blue. Same effect on tropical white corral sand beaches.

As one observes such color earlier or later in a day when the sun altitude is lower, the color would be correspondingly less saturated and darker. That shadow beneath Bear shows this was shot at mid day.

David

[windknot]

Wow, neat report. Thanks for taking us vicariously on your trip!

[Matthewkphx]

Wolfie is a handsome pup!

[giantbrookie]

Nice trip and report. Whereas I myself wait for the high lakes to thaw so as to catch their residents without an auger rig, I enjoy viewing the photos of the high country with a lot of snow about.

[Harlen]

"As one observes such color earlier or later in a day when the sun altitude is lower, the color would be correspondingly less saturated and darker. That shadow beneath Bear shows this was shot at mid day."

David.

Thanks for the clear description of that color phenomenon. And you are dead right David- these pics were taken about 11:30. Are you an atmospheric scientist, or just curious and studious?
Interesting correlation between the ice-bottom lake color, and that of the coral sand shallows in the tropics. I assume that yet another correlation would be the water color in the waters found over "glacial flour-bottomed" lakes, for instance around Glacier NP?

It is my favorite color in the world! Once more below David:

lastturqlakeDSCN0516[1].jpg

[SSSdave]

That color just makes you want to jump right in like it is super sweet Koolaide you could drink and when you climbed back out would be glowing like a aqua firefly. How about a comment of coping with the intense noonday light even with dark sunglasses. One can literally feel the radiation heat broiling one's exposed skin.

Curious and studious about all the natural sciences. Know or can readily look up a modest amount about a broad range of subjects without being an expert at any haha. In the case of Rayleigh light scattering do not understand the math a physics major would have had to deal with. A terrific classic 1954 book by a dutch physicist that can be bought used barely above the usual Amazon shipping cost:

https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Light-Col ... ref=sr_1_1

David

[Harlen]

"Wolfie is a handsome pup!" Matthew

And he is very fast, and very fierce! He'll get a mouthful of Bear's throat fur/skin and just hang on... and Bear never minds.

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David, you asked about the intense sun, and it's a pertinent question for us. This trip Lizzie brought a stick of chapstick which it turned out, had no SPF qualities. She suffered the interesting symptom of swelling lips- looked like a Hollywood "lip-job" gone wrong! It was so weird looking that she would not let me take a picture of it for posterity. Went down only after two full days out of the mountains. Never again- read those labels.

Re. the eyes, I have a pair of very dark "glacier glasses" that I wear when conditions are really bright, and a second pair of wide and deep "solar shield" sunglasses which I wear early and late, and whenever the light is not too intense, because these fit over my distance glasses so much better than the others do. we are very careful with our eyes- temporary snow blindness is a dreadful experience, which I luckily have only experienced vicariously through my less careful partners. Always carry a spare pair of sunglasses.

[nunatak]

Nice trip! When we climbed Humphrey in May of maybe 2001 it was mostly bare in there. This is better!

Do you think the dogs suffer from the intense sun glare? I spend a lot of time with my dog skiing and doing early season snow travel. Sometimes I worry.