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Last weekend I hiked to Buena Vista Peak from Glacier Point Road. Boots most of the way, snowshoes at the end. These shots might give you an idea of conditions up there.
Great shots!!! Thanks for posting! It will be interesting to see what it looks like after this next system rolls through (squashed my plan for an early season trip :/)
Thanks for taking the time to post these pretty photo's and giving folks an idea on the
current backcountry conditions.
Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer
I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.
Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member:http://reconn.org
Thanks a valuable visual look at snow depths in that region. Would be rather sadly dry however right now the current supposedly small storm is making a larger than forecast push into the southern part of the state where we most needs precipitation. Hanford NWS is now forecasting as much as 20 inches of new snow in higher elevations that is double what it looked like a couple days ago. Of course much that might land at middle elevations is likely to melt off quickly because ground temps on the many bare sunny exposures have been warming for weeks.
This morning after sizing up the storm, packed my Forester with gear and have decided to work the Yosemite areas this weekend. Will drive off directly after work this afternoon and sleep out on a familiar BLM 4wd road south of Colterville listening to pitter patter much of the night. Expect they'll close Glacier Point road you drove up on way down at the ski area. Was down in the lower Merced River canyon 4 weeks ago and got the poppy image at the bottom of this page:
Though decent wildflowers considering the drought, regarless it looked relatively dry with plants small. Don't expect snow on the valley floor tomorrow morning but it will be pasting the upper walls. Something to aim my new A6000 tele zoom at. Forecast shows mostly cloudy Saturday even after the storm passes thus will allow diffuse light understory forest work for early dogwood that ought now be blooming. And down lower Moss Creek is still likely to have some spring species.
I was up backpacking around the north rim. I had a really amazing trip. I ended up at the creek that runs by Basket Dome, and found a really nice camp with a view of half dome that just looked like you could reach out and touch it. Anyway I knew some moisture was coming in Friday, but when I got to this camp I finally had a good look at the storm coming in, and it looked like it could produce a lot of snow. I decided to shine camping at that spot because it would have been brutal getting out of there with a foot or more of fresh snow. Right when I got done filling up on water at the creek, I stood up and saw a pretty sizable bear going for my pack! I yelled at him/her and it ran away.....ran away through the manzanita maze I had to navigate to get out of there! What an amazing spot though I will be making that camp a destination for sure. Basket Dome is quite scenic in itself. Woke up friday morning to a beautiful winter wonderland up on the north rim. Saturday (yesterday) was such a sunshining wonderful day. Golden. Crisp. Clear. Pure Love.
Thanks, everyone. In the meantime I sorted through another set of shots from Glacier Point Road / Sentinel Dome the weekend of 3/7/14. This was about the full extent of last winter's snow:
sparky - that area had a bear problem last year: http://www.justroughinit.com/blog/them_ ... mite_bears" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
You might want to let the rangers know they are already active this year.
