5/9/2020 snow pack Caltopo lo-res

[SSSdave]

There be snow yet to melt, so get your sled ready Billy for the SIP end later this month.

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Disperse camping about Mono Lake east of South Tufa is a most interesting past time during May as much life is happening at the marshy shoreline and inland is quite green and flowery with late season storms common over the big still white peaks. Watch out for the "quick sand" only fit for seagulls.
Evolution Valley mostly green. The San Joaquin River below the valley from the Piute Creek confluence is a worthy place to dwell.

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Caspar the Ghost Lake looks to be melting out.

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[AaronRDavis]

Since Caltopo doesn't seem to have the high res imagery for free accounts anymore, I have been using Sentinel instead here:

https://apps.sentinel-hub.com/sentinel- ... Dates=true

[SSSdave]

Thanks for that link Aaron. Played around with it some, much functionality there. Haven't figured out how to switch between map mode and satellite mode? Switches momentarily when zooming in or out however may need to ask the EO browser community. Very useful for showing areas of vegetation color, especially during wildflower blooms.

Can see Kibbie, Laurel, Vernon, Brannigan, Edyth, Boundary, Many Island, Spotted Fawn, all melted out. Also notice there was actually a decent poppy bloom in the lower Merced River canyon by mid April. Something I had wondered about while SIP. In any case the general national forest closures will expire in just a few days on May 15. Thus it is time to make some plans despite the fact NF are not issuing permits without indicating it will be illegal to do so without a permit given the circumstances.

[canyonfish]

Thanks for the link, Aaron, that's a great free resource.

[SSSdave]

Looking at the sentinel hub link above over this last couple weeks across the range, one can see the warmer sunny weather has considerably melted snow in the higher elevations. Shows I am going to need to schedule our main 9 day trip a bit earlier this summer. July 4 holiday conditions are likely to be pretty good though mosquitoes will be peaking. To change the date on the above link 05/09/20 instead of slowly moving up one date at a time, change the 05 digits in the url to 06. Another useful feature is under "Effects" increasing the brightness when the image is dark, especially to see light green areas where plants are rising.