Share Your Worst October Weather Experience
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:36 pm
Most of us who have been visiting the Sierra for decades, and those who have just started, will always hear of the unpredictability, and possible freaky snow storms one may encounter when visiting in this precarious month.
It would be great if you had a personal experience to share, so those who have only read warnings about going out in October can really understand what the possible dangers are by reading there fellow backpackers experiences with mother natures wrath during an October trip.
One of my October weather trips was a decade ago while visiting Emerald Lakes, up the Middle Fork of Bishop Creek. Got hit by a storm for which the forecast was a few inches of snow each day, but really turned out to be more like a couple of feet.
Had to get up ever hour to get the snow off the tent, this went on all night. At around 3 am, and sleepy as hell, set my watch alarm for a 2 hour wake up, instead of an hour, because it sounded like the snow had died down, and wanted to get some extra sleep.
Bad idea, when my alarm went off at 5 am I looked up at my tents ceiling, it was covered in snow, my whole tent was enveloped by snow, had to dig for quite a while to remove most of the snow from around the tent.
At 7 am the skies were blue with some clouds drifting in from the west as I looked north, but as I turned around towards the Sierra Crest there were some grey clouds slowly moving in towards my position, and I could see the heavy snow falling from these clouds.
Since my plan was to get up early next morning anyways, decided to head out instead of taking the chance of it snowing on me the next morning during my hike out.
There was at least 2 feet of fresh snow, a lot more in some places, and of coarse no trail to follow. While hiking out ran into some folks who had stayed at some of the higher lakes, and were surprised by the snow, they had been hiking in circles trying to make it out to there cars, obviously lost, and unprepared for these conditions. We hiked out together, and as we got pasted Blue Lake it really started to snow on us, made me wonder what these folks would have done if no one would have come by while they were wandering around lost, and suddenly they experienced whiteout conditions.
It would be great if you had a personal experience to share, so those who have only read warnings about going out in October can really understand what the possible dangers are by reading there fellow backpackers experiences with mother natures wrath during an October trip.
One of my October weather trips was a decade ago while visiting Emerald Lakes, up the Middle Fork of Bishop Creek. Got hit by a storm for which the forecast was a few inches of snow each day, but really turned out to be more like a couple of feet.
Had to get up ever hour to get the snow off the tent, this went on all night. At around 3 am, and sleepy as hell, set my watch alarm for a 2 hour wake up, instead of an hour, because it sounded like the snow had died down, and wanted to get some extra sleep.
Bad idea, when my alarm went off at 5 am I looked up at my tents ceiling, it was covered in snow, my whole tent was enveloped by snow, had to dig for quite a while to remove most of the snow from around the tent.
At 7 am the skies were blue with some clouds drifting in from the west as I looked north, but as I turned around towards the Sierra Crest there were some grey clouds slowly moving in towards my position, and I could see the heavy snow falling from these clouds.
Since my plan was to get up early next morning anyways, decided to head out instead of taking the chance of it snowing on me the next morning during my hike out.
There was at least 2 feet of fresh snow, a lot more in some places, and of coarse no trail to follow. While hiking out ran into some folks who had stayed at some of the higher lakes, and were surprised by the snow, they had been hiking in circles trying to make it out to there cars, obviously lost, and unprepared for these conditions. We hiked out together, and as we got pasted Blue Lake it really started to snow on us, made me wonder what these folks would have done if no one would have come by while they were wandering around lost, and suddenly they experienced whiteout conditions.