High Sierra Topix

Just got out of the hills yesterday. 7 days mostly in Red Mt Basin. Weather totally changed the scope of the trip— never seen rain like this in the Sierra (it poured for 6 straight hours at Blackrock Lk.). 4 of the days were full of thunder, and one night was a hail and light show. But the weird thing was after day one, we never saw a human. Last day hiking to the trailhead from the King’s River, not one person. I’ve never seen it like this. It couldn’t just be the weather. What is going on?
Ps: the fishing was awesome

We should all be so lucky!

They were all over in Ducy with me! Overflow parking 1.2 miles away from the trailhead for longterm. Bear cans required but never saw anyone with one.

Yes the rain was pretty intense there too. I hadn't seen rain or lightning in months so enjoyed the umbrella time, got that night light show too. OBTW, fishing was would change by the minute from skunk to awesome and back again.

Westmatt, just to be clear—. I’m not complaining . We had Rae, Blackrock, Punchbowl, and Kings River all to ourselves. I just expected after a year of COVID that it would look like Manhattan in the basin.

I, too, was surprised by the paucity of people I encountered on trail a couple of weeks ago. First time I've seen the hiker parking lot at North Lake less than half full in July. I wonder if it's because of the greater ability to do touristy things this summer. Mammoth and Bishop certainly seemed as busy as ever.

I live east of Fresno, and have been spending time in the Shuteye, Courtright and Kaiser Pass areas. The forest has been very empty. I spent July 3rd on shuteye and saw 2 motorcycles and no climbers all day and the lookout ranger commented on the lack of visitors. We have been camping at Courtright and have had no trouble finding a good dispersed site even on the weekends. I have talked to two groups of climbers who said that climbers on another website were claiming that the forest was closed, most roads were, impassable, the earth scorched and the forest rangers were handing out $5000 tickets. I contrast this with my trip to the June lake area where the popular areas were packed a couple weeks ago. Hiking in Yosemite has been nearly as packed as usual, but climbing in Yosemite has been awesome, the easy safe routes I am capable of have been devoid of crowds. I Hope the westside forest stays "closed" for a while.

Maybe it's because of the messed up permit system.

You reported days of rain. That always chases fair numbers of backpackers out of the back country especially those 2 days plus miles in as you were. There are many that don't have the gear to comfortably go more than one day with wet weather as clothing gets soaked. Especially those many with hike all day itineraries. So they get stuck tent bound a day, eat much of whatever little comfort food they bought and decide to bail. At the same time foul weather also has that affect on some car campers.

Generally due to the pandemic permit system, many walk-up users are inhibited while there are significant numbers of those abusing the reservation system aborting reservations without cancelling. Also still many people on a pandemic benny government paid vacation. So ought expect some places in front country or back country are packed while others are not as is disruptive.

Good points by all. I did just go on rec,gov to see what the permit situation was at Maxon-- plenty still available this week. Folks aren't rushing to get them.

I think Dave is right that the rain played a factor -- I know it certainly caused me to postpone/reschedule a planned weekend trip I had for 7/31-8/1. Also, areas closer to the west side are just not as popular as areas more easily accessed from the east. But it's interesting to hear from folks who are regularly on the west side that there seem to be fewer people this year than previous years in those same areas.

I think the biggest factor is simply that all of the folks who were pushed into the backcountry by default last year due to not being able to pursue other leisure activities are now back to their regularly scheduled leisure. Add in a good percentage of the people who would typically be backpacking now but are instead visiting friends/family because we couldn't do it last summer, and that probably accounts for much of any real change.