Sunday morning June 10 now. I hiked out by early afternoon Saturday. Wednesday drove up. Snow showers on US50 above Twin Bridges though just dusting the ground. Picked up a permit for 4 nights at the SLT TNF Supervisor's office. Some nice large landscape prints on walls in that modern building. Tahoe did have some sun out while Crystal Range was enveloped in storm clouds. Temperature down at the Fallen Leaf Lake road junction was 38F degrees at midday so occasional blustery squalls of swirling flakes were moving down canyon right onto Tahoe shores. Further up the canyon at the trailhead temp was 34F so shady leafy areas were accumulating a bit. Just one car at the large paved trailhead lot. Last time there was 1984 when it was a jeep road where one could drive further up its stony route.
I used my REI Mercury internal pack I'd bought in spring 2004 for snow camping. I haven't used it much since because of its smaller capacity than my old external Lowe. But worked on some modifications this last week to improve piggybacking of my 22 pound Black Diamond L40 Stone daypack. The Stone contains all my large format camera gear. Never seem to be able to resist bringing up more food than I need on shorter trips. So stopped at the SLT Ralph's market at the Y junction, bought a loaf of Cinnabon brand cinnamon bread and Country Crock "Honey Spead" sweet whipped margerine, and squeezed that into my Ursack. Yum!
Contemplating the small possibility the stormy trough might persist longer than NWS forecasts, I opted to wear my bulky trusty 37 ounce North Face Hydroseal winter parka though could have gotten by with a leaner 3 layer system also down in my pack. Also had chosen my 3-season North Face Slickrock tent instead of my usual summer OR Basic Bivy. Thinking the squalls would be decreasing in the afternoon, and not wanting to get clammy, I gambled not putting on my rain pants, thus exposing my Levis. Fine if the snowing remained light but that turned out to be a poor decision I won't make in the future. Also I could have wore my 12 ounce Marmot rain shell atop my parka in order to keep the outside fabric drier.
A couple miles up the trail, where the trail rounds a rocky rib, the first of three strong snow squalls during my hike in occurred. Thinking about getting the jeans wet, I hid behind a too small sierra juniper for half an hour. Now my rainpants and the rain shell were right at the top of my main pack. Undoing the straps to get them out was a 5-minute task and I would have to take my boots off too to get the rainpants on. A hassle likely to get some of my gear wet since though in a lull, light snow was still falling. Instead I decided to push up the trail hoping to find a more protected grove of dense trees to deal with the gear. Unfortunately I was on a steepish 1000 foot section of the trail, mostly open brush and exposed. Pushing carrying 75 pounds up a steep trail is unpleasant. I stopped at this midway spot for 15 minutes when a second briefer squall hit:
One can see snow now coating all the brush. Was a few inches deep in shady places under trees. However ground temps from weeks of late spring were high enough that snow quickly melted in sunny areas that included most of the trail itself. I should have put the rainpants and rain shell on at that spot. Second poor decision. A modest lull occurred so I pushed more up the trail and by time I reached the top of the steeps, I had tired myself out far more than my usual leisurely pace would have done. Hoping the lull would last, I pushed on to my 4.5 mile destination hoping to reach the area before another squall hit.
An hour later as my weary pace had slowed, the third windy squall hit right near the destination. At one point I had to cross a 20 foot wide stream as much as three feet deep atop a wet 18 inch wide barkless log. Fresh graupel was sticking to the log as I hastily went across with considerable fear of slipping in. That squall had me pinned down for another half hour beneath a quite inadequate tree. Snow piled up atop my pack rain cover. Finally about 6pm, a sizeable blue zone of sky appeared that signalled the end of storminess. In the remote far from trail spot in a gnarly juniper grove I'd expected to camp at, I found a bumpy with small stones spot to set up my tent. Almost every other usual flat spots one might have tented on were water puddles or inch deep piles of snow. Although my blue jeans just picked up some minor dampness, the story could have been much more unpleasant if the storm had not let up. Lessons learned.
The rest of the story? Well Thursday morning under a partly sunny dawn sky, the thermometer inside my tent was a wintery 22F degrees and likely at least a couple degrees lower outside. But plans are plans, and I hoped for some "early light" photos. Well was glad to have my parka. The zone has considerable glaciated metamorphic and granitic bedrock and shattered rock. A white frozen glaze covered all the vegetation and rocks. Walking about the rocky areas was especially precarious. By mid morning the June sun took controll quickly melting back the snow. By Saturday morning when I hiked out, one could hardly tell a dusting of snow had been in the area just a couple days before. Over the three days, I exposed 28 sheets of Provia that I ought to get back from development this Thursday. Sierra junipers? Oh yeah some exceptional specimens and also a few high potential lake reflections. ...David