peninsula,
i can totally relate.
i was in the big arroyo when that storm hit.
i went in from crescent meadow and made it to kern hot springs. i was going to head north and visit the upper kern basin. a fella at the hot springs who came in from mineral king affirmed the 10 day forcast i did before i headed out. (the 10 day only gave me a 20% chance of rain/snow and i figured it would be a light winter storm like the one that came through a week beforehand)
...and so i decided to head back out.
hiking above moraine lake on the chagoopa plateau, i met two people (male and female) on their way to whitney who said the rangers told them it was a biggie, expecting 5 inches of rain at lower elevations... and so i was glad to have decided to turn back. unfortunately (or fotunately depending on perspective) i did not make it to kaweah gap before the storm hit... so i hunkered down in the big arroyo near the cabin site. those 2 people must have been at or near the hot springs when the storm hit. did you see them? wait, i finshed reading your report... i see that you did meet ted and jennifer. i'll assume they were the ones that came in from the westside.
tuesday was kewl, with light snowfall. at first, i thought there was a bear outside turning over rocks... but i discovered it was snow falling off the trees making a "plod" sound as they hit the ground. i was in heaven. i stayed indoors most of the day and read a book.
then all hell broke loose once the sun went down... as it started to pound rain and sleet ALL NIGHT LONG. i kept batting off the snow from the tent and it in turn, ended up constricting the ditches i made around the tent resulting in water getting under my tent and eventually seeping into the tent (piece of crap stephenson warmlite, even after seam sealing). also, batting the snow off the tent made condensation inside the tent splatter on me which aggravated my attempt to stay dry. i was busy all night mopping up water with my spare t-shirt and my sleeping bag was getting wet. once light began to show at dawn, my jacket was even showing signs of getting wet but i managed. i remember staying focused on keeping the bag on my insulite pads as good as i could to prevent from really getting soaked and into a hypothermic situation.... but at dawn, my legs which were really wet were beginning to shiver. peering outside, i saw that the clouds were getting thinner and so i knew it would break on wednsday - and it did. once the sun came out, i began to dry things out.
it must have rained somewhere between 7-9 inches and the big arroyo was a raging torrent. it flash flooded around 2AM cuz i hear it begin to roar all within a period of like 10 minutes.
here's a slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12579619@N ... 0497/show/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
and a few videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTmSXa1ziNE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2BMDoiM_LU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
once i got over kaweah gap, i was really tired from punching through 12"-16"of wet snow every other step. i camped in the snow just south of the gap at a tarn. that's when i saw a rescue chopper fly by. never saw it come back out. upon return home, my wife told me about the 3 lost hikers. the next morning, walking on the snow was much easier... but there were icy sections around precipice lake that slowed me back down as i had to kick my heels into the snow, breaking the hard surface in order to have some traction.
i would not want to experience a monsoon storm like this again.... but looking back, it was quite an experience. in retropect, i should have taken my other tent (northface nebula) which weighs 4 pounds more than the stephensons but it sure does a great job repelling rain, even when waterlogged underneath.
does anyone know what direction this storm came from? it really didn't seem like a cold arctic storm as it was rather warm with the rain & sleet at 9600 feet. when i first noted the storm clouds, they were coming up from the south. that then turned and they were coming in from the west. maybe like a "pineapple express" coming in from the hawaiian islands?