TR: Skelton Lake snow camp, April 22-23, 2017
Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2017 11:09 am
In 2017 for our yearly spring snow camping trip we chose to return to the Mammoth Lakes region. The first effect from this year's snow fall is the date for our trip. This is about 3 weeks later than in previous years.
We (Cloudlesssky, Blackfoot, Brad and I) started at the Lake Mary road closure and snowshoed past Lake Mary to the Duck Pass trail. The weather was gorgeous with temps in the 60s. We roughly followed the trail to Skelton Lake where we set up camp near the south end of the lake, and this site was about 4.1 miles/4.5 hours from our trailhead. Of course there was a lot more snow than we encountered last year at Arrowhead Lake. Once we got camp established we had a fine happy hour with Guinness and Glenmorangie.
Overnight weather was pretty good. Temperatures didn't get below freezing, and the only negative was the occasional burst of wind that would rattle the tent a bit. We broke camp the next morning and were on the trail by 9AM, reaching our trailhead in about 2 hours.
I overlaid my GPS track on Google Earth, and I found that we were camped on the ice over the lake.
We (Cloudlesssky, Blackfoot, Brad and I) started at the Lake Mary road closure and snowshoed past Lake Mary to the Duck Pass trail. The weather was gorgeous with temps in the 60s. We roughly followed the trail to Skelton Lake where we set up camp near the south end of the lake, and this site was about 4.1 miles/4.5 hours from our trailhead. Of course there was a lot more snow than we encountered last year at Arrowhead Lake. Once we got camp established we had a fine happy hour with Guinness and Glenmorangie.
Overnight weather was pretty good. Temperatures didn't get below freezing, and the only negative was the occasional burst of wind that would rattle the tent a bit. We broke camp the next morning and were on the trail by 9AM, reaching our trailhead in about 2 hours.
I overlaid my GPS track on Google Earth, and I found that we were camped on the ice over the lake.