High Sierra Topix

Just got back from 6 days in Humphreys Basin. Every day smoke blew in at noon (from the west), pretty thick at times, then cleared about 10PM. Clear in AM. Today was the first day that only a little bit of smoke was in the air in the afternoon.

We drove by the Walker Fire this afternoon. Smoke in Lee Vining and east. So far smoke not blowing into the mountains.

Smoke from the fire near June Lake:
http://instagram.com/p/6a3ddnLOYC/

http://instagram.com/p/6cqvVnrOe8/
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HikingGeek.com

http://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/

not the Sierra, but check out this website. I wish we had something like this for the USA.

Because of dense smoke, 180 is closed at the Hume Lake junction. Have to bail on our Rae Lakes Loop and do part of the HST instead.

We could see the pyro cumulous cloud from the Walker fire from Sonora yesterday (8/15).

Here's a news report on the Rough Fire, the video stars a couple of HST members, Rogue Photonic and Alpine Mike, taking things in their stride

http://abc30.com/news/rough-fire-forces ... ve/934385/

Dave

See http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4515/ and
update http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/article/4515/27195/

I just got back from 10 days on a variation of the Circle of Solitude. The Rough Fire was a constant companion, blowing in for a few hours each day, usually in the afternoon. Ended up taking a smoky layover day at Lake Reflection before climbing over Longley Pass the next day to perfectly clear weather. We stayed at lake 10962 in Sphinx Basin for two nights and watched the pyrocumulus clouds grow each afternoon. The second night was quite smoky and as we descended Sphinx Creek the following day we could barely see across Bubbs Creek. The smoke would come and go quite abruptly, so there wasn't much chance to escape it when it did roll in.