High Sierra Topix

EDIT:
I blew this original post by asking about 1993 when in fact I should have said 1995. Apologies for starting us off on the wrong track. Trip reports from 1983, 1995, or 2011 might all be useful in gauging this year's conditions.
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The story this morning is that the March 1 snowpack (overall) is 185% of normal, a number last exceeded in 1993 which was at 205%. In gauging trips for this year, I thought it might be interesting to read about people's experiences from 1993.

I would have to dig out of storage my old Kodachrome slides and scan them, but that was the year I went over Kearsarge for the first time (in August), and I do not recall snow in the pass or at Charlotte or at Gardiner. There was a well trod path through snow on the north side of Glenn Pass. What does that tell me? I'm not sure...perhaps April-July always melts out the snow no matter how high it is? Perhaps Kearsarge was further south from that year's record snowfall?

In looking at the CDEC data from 1993, the snow at Charlotte was completely melted out by June 16, 1993--after peaking at 43 inches of water content on April 20--so a record snowfall apparently does not mean that summer backpacking conditions necessarily are greatly affected. (That must have been quite some runoff during those two months for the snow not to have lingered!)

But if some of you did trips in other parts of the Sierra in 1993 that would be particularly interesting to hear about....

kpeter wrote:The story this morning is that the March 1 snowpack (overall) is 185% of normal, a number last exceeded in 1993...

I think you mean 1995.

kpeter wrote:In looking at the CDEC data from 1993, the snow at Charlotte was completely melted out by June 16, 1993...

I'm curious where you obtain your data. When I look at Charlotte on the CDEC application it says no data are available in mid-June 1993. I couldn't pull up data prior to mid-October 2004.

I'm using this link:
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/jspplot/jspPlo ... ies=cdec01

What are you using?

In 1995 I didn't even try to go into the High Sierra until the July 4th weekend, which was also coincident with the opening of Tioga Pass Road to automobile traffic. I tried to do a trip into the Palisades and in the hot sun the deep soft snow was grievous. We retreated and ran into a group of friends who had also given up on their attempt to cross over one of the east side passes. They said that from the pass the view to the west looked like mid-winter.

1983, not 1993. Although 1993 was pretty wet, too.

in 1983 Shadow Lake in LVNP still had ice in August.

Shadow Lake gets its name from its position in a steep north facing bowl and gets very little midday sun even in mid summer.

I was on a helitack crew in 1983. It was pretty dead summer for fire crews. No one made much overtime that year.

Well, I have shots from 1985, not 1983 and I have shots from 1995, not 1993. Oh well.

ERIC wrote:1983, not 1993. Although 1993 was pretty wet, too.

No, I think he meant 1995. The headline that you will find on many websites is "the biggest snowpack in 22 years".

In any case, you really only need to go back six years to 2011 to see what a big winter means for backpacking in the High Sierra. And this year is already bigger than that.

First week of August 1995

I don't have any photos from 1995, alas. But I do remember that summer...I was leading a mid-August trans-Sierra trip that was planned to follow the Middle Fork Kings from South Lake to Rancheria (we swapped cars with another group doing the same route in reverse). By early July it became obvious that we were going to have trouble crossing the Middle Fork, so we rerouted to South Lake-->Roads End. Snow on Bishop Pass, Palisades Creek was a tough crossing, Devils Washbowl was spectacular, and we couldn't take a break at Granite Pass because the mosquitoes were so thick.

Devils Washbowl was spectacular

One of the best and least known about water shows in the Sierra.