Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
This was taken a couple years ago at Boothe Lake just North of Vogelsang HSC. When we got to Evelyn Lake, the night was clear and there were planes stacked up all day, at 2-3min intervals right over our camp, until about 11pm.
I guess it's a major flightpath for SFO Inbound traffic from the East. It doesn't really add to the ambiance of the experience. I wish the FAA could move the traffic either just a little North or South of Yose and Seki. It also seems to be a North/South route for planes, but those are fewer.
The Military planes are really few, but exciting. They seem to fly along the eastern escarpment so you don't generally see them if you're west of the divide.
Still, i'm bugged by the constant noise barrage. Just ranting.. not sure what to do about it yet.
What I detest most, more than the damn contrails, is the friggin jet noise all night when trying to get some sleep.
Every 5 minutes...sounds like Yosemite is in the main holding pattern for the Western US...
I can understand in the day...the pilot saying, "look down, there is Half Dome on the left...", but at night, Come on!!! Move the pattern over, PLEASE! Could drive a man to drink...in fact, I think I will bring some Single Malt along...as if I needed a good excuse.
They used to bug me before the digital camera age, but now I just photoshop
them out of the pic.
The noise has not been a major issue most places I have stayed.
The noise is the biggest detractor for me. Contrails actually help me sometimes figure out storm patterns.
Probably need to complain to someone about the current SFO inbound pattern, just not sure who yet. Not like i can throw gill-nets up 5 miles and remove the "problem."
Its never bothered me to the extreme, but I bet that'll change now next time I do find it a nuisance for photography.
I recall hiking down from Shepherd's Pass a few days before Sept 11, 2001, and talking to a backpacker as he was heading in for a week or so. I still wonder if he noticed the lack of air traffic (that memory crosses my mind quite often when I see air traffic while backpacking).
While I don't like overflights anymore than anyone else where exactly to you propose e-w flights be relocated to. Virtually every mile of the Sierra between Tahoe and the lower kern is someone's favorite place. It might be possible to relocate some n-s travel routes relatively cheaply but rerouting e-w travel would be a pretty expensive proposition. As I recall relatively few flights cross Kings Canyon NP, though the s. most part was affected by 2 daily round trips between Lemore Naval Airbase and a bombing range in Nevada in the 80s (these were flights at legal altitudes, not the infamous Kern and Whitney buzzes). Don't know if they still do that. I also remember flying into SF from Boston in the late 70s and we must have been flying directly over the Tuolumne River because looking to the North I could clearly identify Benson and Tilden lakes, but can't recall seeing Hetch Hetchy.
Mike
Mike
Who can't do everything he used to and what he can do takes a hell of a lot longer!
