[pct-l] Sierra and SoCal snow comparisons

[Ned Tibbits]

Frank is entirely correct!

Water surveys can lend a picture of how much snow is there at the time of 
the survey, but how much will be there when you get there is another story.

What is important is, how does this information relate to how you're going 
to get through it and deal with it safely in order to continue having fun 
once you're there?

Sure, if the pack is low during the winter, perhaps in the spring it will be 
less, but will it be the idealistic "gone?" Ideally, we would all like to 
hike on always-dry trail and in the best of weather and with the lightest 
loads, but what we find may not be so. In reality, it is best to assume that 
you will have snow to trudge over to one degree or another, pretty much 
whenever you leave a sierra trailhead prior to August and are heading for 
one of its high passes. The snowline may be at 9,500 in May, at 10,500 in 
June, or at 11,000 in July, but even in late July in an average year, there 
often is snow on the passes.

As we teach, "It doesn't matter how deep the snow is, whether it is 8 inches 
or 8 feet, you have to deal with walking on it the same!"

So, as PCT thru hikers, accept that you will run into snow somewhere on your 
hike, whether patches or entire miles of snowfields, discover how to get 
around on it without falling down, and practice how to prevent injury should 
you fall.

Snow is scary to those who don't understand it and fun to those who do (in a 
nutshell)!



Ned Tibbits, Director
Mountain Education
www.mountaineducation.org
-----Original Message----- 
From: Frank Dumville
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2013 11:44 AM
To: pct-l
Subject: [pct-l] Sierra and SoCal snow comparisons

Southern California precipitation totals are 50 - 70% below normal at this
time.

I was on the trail in 2005 and 2006. I hiked WA-OR in 2005 and my
recollection was that there was a heavy snowpack in the Sierra which caused
many thru-hikers to flip over the Sierra. I hiked CA in 2006 and the
snowpack wasn't as bad. This shows the problems with trying to estimate
hiking conditions based on the water surveys.

>> Some examples - 2005 and 2006 will very similar in the Sierra,

Snap

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