Prognosticating Spring

April 5, 2006

Given the record snow this season, we got to sitting around the other night, discussing the ramifications and whatnot.

This was with Buck Meadows and Lyin' Judy Bridger and the rest of the gang. We were having a time over in The Ghetto. This house in particular had an extra refrigerator. All you do is open the front door and there is a solid wall of packed snow, with beers and whatever jammed in there. I thought I saw an Amy's frozen pizza, but maybe I dreamed that up.

Buck said I probably dreamed it. Said it happens to him alla time.

Buck lives with his imagination over on the West Side, just outside of Yosemite, and he said he wouldn't be surprised if the park shuts down the five high camps again, like what happened last season, when we got a similar heavy snowfall up here. And he said he was surprised last spring at how long some of the trails up in the park stayed covered with snow well into the hiking season.

"Not to mention that crossing streams got a little Western," he said.

Judy, meanwhile, recalled that Tioga Pass last season didn't open until June 24, which was about a month later than normal and sent everyone in Lee Vining into a kind of low-level freakout. I double-checked that, knowing Judy, and this time she was spot on.

As for Red's Meadow, people might want to remember that the road from Minaret Summit to Red's didn't open until June 29 last year, when Mammoth Mountain got "only" 607 inches of snow for the season.

On the other hand, says I to the gang, we had a nice, long, lingering fall last year, which made up for the late spring, and Yosemite and Red's could probably use the rest, the Sierra being the trampling ground that it is, and that the snowpack is in great shape for all of us in Californy, and ...

Well, then things started to get out of hand a little bit and that front door started opening and closing with some regularity and I lost track of what went on.

Long winters are like that.

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