[pct-l] A ride from Seattle to Harts Pass?

[Tom Weir]

This news story tells why the road to Hart's Pass is being plowed for heavy
equipment.

http://www.omakchronicle.com/nws/n110710a.shtml


-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Eric Lee
Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2011 9:21 AM
To: 'James Dunn'; pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [pct-l] A ride from Seattle to Harts Pass?

I wrote:
>
Harts Pass is still buried under several (maybe 8-ish?) feet of snow and
won't be accessible by car any time soon.
>

Someone wrote to me privately and said that the Forest Service told them
that Harts Pass has been plowed for heavy equipment access and will be open
to cars in about a week.  Well, I didn't know that Harts Pass road got
plowed in the spring so if they say it's going to be open then I guess it'll
be open, though you might want to check on that yourself.

This person also pointed out that the closest snotel site to Harts Pass is
showing 28 inches of snow.  But as for snow depth, the snotel sites are
notorious for underestimating the actual snow on the ground since they're
usually placed in places that tend to melt out first.  I looked at
yesterday's snow analysis overlay as described in HalfMile's instructions
(http://www.pctnews.com/2011/updated-pct-snow-information-for-627-233/) and
the snow depth overlay (not the water content overlay that is on by default)
shows somewhere between 5 and 8 feet of depth, and in my experience the
overlays also tend to underestimate the actual situation.  I didn't actually
drive up to Rainy Pass to eyeball the situation there but the snow depth
overlay matches with what I could see of the high peaks from my location at
Ross Lake.

So take all of my information with a grain of salt because I haven't
actually put boots on trail/snow up there.  As always, the only way to know
for sure is to go see for yourself.  :-)

Eric