A couple months ago me and a buddy set off to hike to the Palisades Glacier in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. If you do not know, its the most southern glacier in the Northern Hemisphere.
As we picked up our permits and set off we were warned about possible snow storm coming in, but we decided to push forward and check out the conditions. HIking up looked like this:
It was absolutely beautiful and a pretty easy hike in. The incline wasn’t too bad and it was only about 5 miles to the second lake where we ended up bedding down for the night. The goal was to get some early rest and wake up in the morning to see what the conditions were like. If they were bad we would turn around and hike back out.
During the entire night, it snowed and kept snowing… In the morning when we woke up our campsite looked like this:
Since it was beginning to white out at the high elevations we decided to turn it around. We were upset to not get to the glacier but we knew the hike back was fairly easy downhill while the hike to the glacier would be a little more technical with all the snow.
Beautiful photos. Even if you didn’t achieve your objective, you had a chance to hike in beautiful country magically transformed by a light coat of snow. It’s all good up there, and I’d say you got your money’s worth on this hike. Good call, and well done, gentlemen.
“Was trying to go back during 4th of July week but permits are all booked up lol”
Keep in mind that 40% of the permit slots are reserved for walk up the day before your hiking day. You’ll have a good chance of getting one on most trails.
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