Latest report of their trek on the JMT Yahoo Group site this morning:
All-
Thanks for following us so closely. If you have any follow-on questions please feel free to ask, we will try to inform as best we can but our information is already two days old. We are committed to doing the JMT in the next 2-5 years, but in mid-July at the earliest!!!!
Main Points: Anything at elevation is still snowy and not melting very quickly. While things are changing quickly since it's finally warming up, the snow is thick, condensed, and not melting at elevation. Snowshoes are mandatory for the passes at this juncture. We covered 8-10 miles per day in snowshoes (roughly 1 mile per hour) and were exhausted at the end, it was impossible to move any faster.
The rangers haven't sent anyone up the trail yet. We gave them a detailed report in the Valley yesterday as we were leaving (exactly what we are typing here) and it's clear they know it's snowy but aren't crazy enough to try going up there.
Tioga: We got a ride out of Tuolomne with two rangers in a truck who said that the road is open to cyclists to Olmsted Point (confirmed by the roughly 100 cyclists we saw on Sunday. Past that, they have a mandatory call through and aren't going through because of avalanche/safety concerns. We would be surprised if the road is open before the 18th because of snow slide concerns (we are scheduling our follow on planning around this). We also spoke to High Sierra Shuttle and are unclear where they are getting their information on the road opening on Thursday.
We spoke to a sporting good store in Mammoth who had heard from a PCTer who tried going over Forester Pass. It took the individual 2.5 hours to ascend 200 vertical feet with an ice axe. So conditions south of Yosemite aren't any less snowy.
Here are the current trail conditions:
1) Yosemite Valley to Forsythe Trail Junction: There is no snow here until about the last mile to the trailhead where it becomes intermittent snow which you can walk through but will definitely posthole in the afternoon. It's really wet here but you can find camping spots on ground. We did not use snowshoes on this (day one) and got through about 8 miles of hiking.
2) Forsythe Trail to Cathedral Lakes: During the first mile you can see the trail as you hike along the ridge but once you go into the forest it's all snow and snowshoes were necessary. We found the up and down of walking over snow extremely taxing as you are hiking up/down snow hills whenever you are in forest cover. We did not see the ground at all in this period and relied on the GPS to keep us on course. Long Meadow probably has 6-8 feet of snow still. Once you start your approach to Cathedral Pass it increases to probably 8-10 feet. Hiking any time after 11am, you will definitely be postholing--even in snowshoes which we wore all day. Water was even difficult to find during this period because there was so much snow. At lunch we had to use rope to drop our Nalgenes 8 feet down to an exposed creek and fill up that way. We camped near Cathedral Lake which is almost 100% frozen still. We were able to grab water near the outlet to Tanaya Creek but it was a small hole in the ice. We camped on snow and it was COLD IN THE MORNING!!!
3) Cathedral Lakes to Tuolomne: Snow all the way down to 120. We used snowshoes the entire time until hitting the road. There is probably a foot of snow in the meadow but we stayed on the road since we were behind, our feet were wet and cold, and we were tired of hiking in the snow. The road is clear at this point but there is not a ranger crew permanently stationed up there yet.
4) Tuolomne in Lyell Canyon: You can get away without snowshoes to Rafferty Creek but any part of the trail that is under forest cover still has snow piles ranging from 1-7 feet. We used our snowshoes the entire time after Rafferty because there was more snow than not. You can follow the trail all the way to Lyell Forks if you know what you are looking for, but we relied on the GPS a lot as well. The snow here is melting fast, and we noticed this even in two days, but the snow under the forest is still icy and hard, and not melting. We both thought how wet things were in the canyon, and you will need to be prepared to have really wet boots if you are hiking in this area in the next month. The trail is waterlogged and we had to be a little creative to stay dry. Dry campsites are even hard to find because there is so much water run off. Finding water is NOT a problem at least!
5) Lyell Forks to Donohue (or at 9650 feet up to Donohue where we turned around): At this point you start ascending quickly, can't find the trail, and are hiking in 8-10 feet of snow again. It is really steep and we couldn't even figure out where the trail was as we ascended. By 11am you start postholing and we can't imagine what the conditions would have been like in the afternoon. The snow here isn't melting and we realized at 9650 feet, there was no point in going higher.
Thanks for all the support, and we'll be back in a few years.
Mike and Marc
Looks like they had an adventure...early departures this year might be a problem!
