A Week in the Sierra’s – Ideas for a clueless Canuck

Too early to tell yet, but it looks like there might be some serious weather coming in next week. Check the reports before you head out.

Here’s a link to the weather forecast for that area:

Weather near Smedberg Lake

Thanks for the heads up guys….I'll keep an eye on it.

Any quick suggestions for a lower elevation loop should the snow hit? Anywhere in the Sierra's would likely be fine…Sequoia National Park, Inyo National Forest, Sierra National Forest, Yosemite etc….I could use a couple easy to plan ideas for nice multi-day (ie. 2-6 day) hikes so that if the weather hits higher up I've got some options.

Start your trip in Yosemite Valley. If the weather is iffy hang out for a couple of days until it clears. The valley is gorgeous in any weather, some rain will put a bit of water in the falls and make it even more so.

Then go to the wilderness center and discuss routes with them. One option is to do a six day 60 mile loop going something like this:
Up along Vernal and Nevada falls, climb Half Dome, up over Clouds Rest, down to Sunrise Lakes, over to Long Meadow, to Cathedral lakes, out to the Tioga Road (obvious bail option here,) Tuolomne Meadows, Lyell Canyon, up to Vogelsang, down to Merced, through Echo Valley, past Bunell, to Little Yosemite Valley and then back down to Yosemite Valley along Nevada and Vernal falls again.

Still you need be prepared for snow and cold as the weather can change quickly. Yosemite Valley is only at about 4000 feet, but Cathedral Pass and Vogelsang Pass along this loop are both above 10,000 feet.

This should be an interesting (epic?) trip with the current weather forecast. They are calling for 8-12 inches of snow on Wednesday with the odds at 100%. There's also another inch or 2 tuesday night and a bit more thursday for a pretty high storm total. The snow line is forecast around 6800'. Things look to be clearing on Thursday and then mostly sunny on friday, saturday and sunday.

My intention is to start my hike wednesday and stick to lower elevations so I'm just in the (heavy) rain. I haven't looked at the topo's too much yet, but hopefully by the time I'm up in the 8-10K feet range it'll be sunny weather and a bit warmer so the snow isn't so trouble-some. I'll have to see how things are looking on tuesday. I'll for a chat at the wilderness center in yosemite valley on tuesday and plan something that works.

Where this gets complicated is in the highway. Highway 120 goes east-west across the park, and its elevation varies from about 6000 feet to 10,000 feet.

When the first snow storm of the season hits, they close the highway at each end. To a certain extent, it is then closed for the season. However, sometimes that first snow storm dumps only an inch or two, and if it is in October, it is warm enough that the snow will melt off quickly, like within a couple of days. In some cases, they will decide to reopen the highway, although you can't count on it. In some cases, it has remained open for another month or more before it finally closes more permanently.

My point is that it is very unpredictable to try to count on using Highway 120 when the snow starts to fall.

–B.G.–

Good to know about the highway. Hopefully the forecast just radically improves before wednesday so none of this is a concern :)

Perhaps it will be best to do something like Kristins suggestion out of Yosemite valley. I'm not too familiar with Yosemite, but hopefully it will be possible to put something together that isn't too high elevation (ie. under 7K) if the need arises. If every nice trail goes too high and the weather is too bad, then I might have to opt for a day hike and then head over to Utah and get started there a bit earlier.

The other bummer with this possible snowfall is that looks like it's going to rule out an attempt on Mt. Whitney. At this point, I'd be eager to hear any trail suggestions in the general area that are logistically easy (ie. a loop) and not too high elevation.

Out of Mammoth Lakes, here's a good loop:

Trailhead: Agnew Meadows (take the shuttle, leave vehicle at ski area parking) or Soda Springs or Reds Meadow…your call based on mileage desired.

Trail: PCT "High Trail" to Badger Lakes, then up to 1000 Island Lake. 1000 Isle to Ruby, Emerald and Garnet Lakes, via the John Muir. Descend to Shadow Lake, option to Ediza Lake if camping, then down the Shadow Lake outfall trail to the River Trail. River Trail to Agnew Meadows or on to Soda Springs/Reds Meadow on the PCT based on the mileage you want. Shuttle back to car.

Play with the topo to pick your campsites.

I rolled into Yosemite yesterday mid-afternoon. It's been a bit of a run-around since then (long story). In the past 24 hours plans have changed many times (initially I was going to start at Tuolumne and get down into the grand canyon of the tuolumne river before the snow storm hit, now I'm glad we didn't because today was an awfully nice day to be inside shops instead of out in the freezing drizzle).

Last night and most of today it snowed/rained pretty hard so we relaxed, did the tourist thing, checked out Mariposa grove etc. Tioga Road and the Road to Glacier Point are closed. They got about a foot of snow at Tuolumne (and everywhere else above 7000'). We camped at Crane Flats and got mostly rain/slush with just a dusting of visible snow by morning.

It's still raining/snowing now (Wednesday evening) but it should clear mostly by morning and starting Friday the weather is supposed to be warm and sunny for many days. Tomorrow we are going to hit the trail at Happy Isles and head toward Merced Lake (7200'). We'll camp just below the snowline…so likely a bit short of the lake. On Friday we might relax for the day at Merced Lake and wait for the snow to melt, or we might trek on if the snow isn't too deep and the weather looks good. We're not certain of our route beyond Merced Lake, but we're likely either going to loop over Vogelsang pass or do a loop south from Merced Lake over ???? pass or just another loop in there in the south east direction. It kinda depends how much snow is up there, how easy it is to navigate with the snow and how quickly it melts.

The weather is supposed to get pretty hot in a few days, so maybe by the time we are done in Yosemite enough snow will have melted to attempt Whitney.

Six of us were to start out of TM on Friday, but hearing you menion a foot of snow, confirms my fears that there will be a lot of snow higher up where we were to head on Saturday, doing a XC route. Plan B may be the Emigrant Wilderness but I'm headed home after a few days away on my vacation. The others can do something, I'm not waiting to hear.
Duane

The trip in Yosemite went good. We headed out the day the storm was subsiding, so there was a decent bit of snow to contend with. We decided to stay as low as possible, so we travelled along the Merced River (from Yosemite Valley) to nearly Merced Lake. The next day we headed out to Wayburn (washburn?) lake. From there, hiked back through clouds rest to near the Half Dome for our 3rd night. We did some off-trail stuff between clouds rest and half dome and found an amazing spot to camp west of half dome. The next day we headed up half dome (which my wife found a little sketchy with the snow/wet rock on the half dome) and then out the valley. We kept this trip to 4 days because we were late getting started and we've got a lot more we want to do.

For others, there isn't much snow in Yosemite below about 7600'. The snow mostly starts around 7800' and goes all the way up. About 12" fell and it's persisting quite a bit in the trees/valleys but it's down pretty thin in the open spots now.

Today is a day off for laundry, wifi etc and tomorrow (early) we are heading up Whitney. We're hoping to do it in a day, but we do have an overnight permit in case we decide to break it up. It sucks lugging a bear canister, but at least we can leave the canister, tent, bags etc behind about half way at trail camp if we are going to be able to complete it in a day. We're thinking about starting around 3-4 am. If can summit that day and make it down before dark, then we'll drive late into the night to Grand Canyon and start hiking down into the canyon first thing the next day….pretty busy but awesome trip so far. So far the highlight is the half dome for my wife, and finding the 'Grove of Titan's' in Jedediah Smith State Park for me.

Did Whitney yesterday….wow that was tough. The snow above the upper camp was deep and the switchbacks were pretty much all blown in with snow and supposedly super sketchy (from talking to other groups) so we opted to scramble up to the right of the switchbacks. That was quite slow going. My wife and I finally made it up to the summit which was great other than we were both feeling the elevation (ie. headache, a bit nautious) so we got a couple quick pics and headed down.

We made it back at 6:45pm, having left at 4am. It was quite a long day and a very hard one for my wife but it was good in these sense that she really pushed herself and dug deep. It was one of those 'limit expanding' days for her. She'd never hiked 22 miles in a day before, let alone a day with 6000' of elevation gain and often in soft snow. We had an overnight permit with the intention of camping out either on the way up or the way back, but we both felt like keeping chugging and getting it done.