R08 TR: 8/23-8/25 2024 planned Hoover BP into wind and snow for fun

[giantbrookie]

I like the 'no bad weather' thing because I think that nearly all of us who have found ourselves uncomfortable in bad weather were in that state owing to not being optimally outfitted (or perhaps we have some sort of failure of some component of our outfit). There is also the situation where one gets wet in an unplanned way. I remember sort of wading/sloshing into the shallows of this lake to get a better casting angle in the fall in the northernmost Sierra--I regretted that when temps dropped below freezing that evening (was car camping at Plumas Eureka with students). Similarly I recall a late October trip that got 'detoured' to Laurel Lake where I got wet doing an off trail short cut and was so cold I stayed in my tent all afternoon/evening instead of fishing.

It is also interesting that when I checked weather forecasts going in, the destination seemed worse than any other place of comparable elevation in the High Sierra. I think it is a more exposed location or something but I kept comparing the forecast to other places of similar elevation hoping that there was some sort of glitch and the high temps would go up a bit (forecast 5F colder for high temps than anywhere else I checked) on the forecast before I left, but the forecast stayed pretty much the same for the last five days or so before departure.

Note this was not a heavy snowstorm--it was forecast to have nothing sticking, and I figure we got about 2" of snow, which you can sort of see in the photos. It certainly wasn't a heavy storm dropping a lot of snow. A truly heavy storm would in fact have made me call off the trip. I think it also helped that the forecast for Sunday stayed fair so we figured we wouldn't have to pack out and bail in a storm.

This having been said, I'm slated to enter NE Yosemite/Hoover Sept 10-12 and I don't really want to intentionally hike into another snowstorm. It was fun as sort of a short-lived novelty, but for the upcoming trip, I will be inclined to cancel the trip, or seriously modify the game plan if another storm is forecast to roll in then.

[KT5519]

What an adventure, and with your daughter along to share it with to boot. That campsite definitely looked cozy too. I was getting pretty hungry at the backcountry description of the cooking of the fish, but then you added the postscript with the pictures of the amazing homemade meals and now I'm starving, good thing dinnertime is getting close. Thanks for sharing the experience.

[windknot]

Thanks for the report! You were certainly prepared for the snow and weather and I'm sure that made all the difference in the quality of experience. I was finishing up a 9-day trip this same weekend that the cold front rolled in, but had only brought my summer bag (rated for 35 degrees, which means more like 45 degrees at comfort ratings) because the original 7-day forecast lows weren't projected to drop below the 40s. Luckily I always pack a down jacket, so I wore that inside my bag at night and was toasty. I too like the Norwegian saying -- backpacking packing is all about mitigating risk based on likely scenarios.