March Snow Survey Results

Park Staff have completed the March 1 snow surveys. The water content of the snowpack in the Tuolumne drainage is 16% of average; in the Merced drainage it is 12% of average. New record lows for March 1 were set on four of the courses in the park this month: Tuolumne Meadows, Tenaya Lake, Ostrander Lake, and Peregoy Meadows. Snow surveys have been done on these courses since the 1930s.

Three straight drought years have to be taking a huge toll on mountain creatures. Lots dying off in thirst away from the few sources of permanent water. Taking a loss on this guy's winter season ski pass. After the holiday period storms have not even bothered given pathetic snow coverage. Wahhhhh!

Unless major surprise(???), we receive unusual early spring storms which some years have happened, my interest in backpacking into the high country this summer will be even less than the past two droughty years. The aesthetic to my eyes is relatively mediocre in dry years. So at most will just do a week or two of backpacking. I had optimistic plans again to go over Shepherd Pass into the Upper Kern areas for a week but that has been tabled for the third straight year. Instead will spend more of my time in the near term down in our southland as wildflowers in some fortunate areas the next several weeks are set to make a decent showing and then in May maybe do a couples weeks with an old LF friend in Colorado Plateau areas of Utah.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2015 04:50PM by DavidSenesac.