Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Its official, all-time biggest snow pack

The cool trend of this spring/summer has finally caused the snowpack to persist to the extent that in the northern sierra, the snow is the same level as the all-time heaviest snowpack on record!

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/products/PLOT_SWC.2011.pdf

In the southern sierra, it is about the same as last year at this point (although I think the run-off in the creeks far exceeds last year. Can't prove this, but the reports of hikers and the objective data from Yosemite supports that)

Yikes!

That darn global warming thing again.

Well, it snowed about an inch this morning on a hike I did in Seven Lakes Basin above Big Pine. It was freezing at 7:00 am. My pack thermometer said 23 degrees at 10,000 feet.

I have also NEVER seen this amount of snow in the mountains around Mammoth in June. I've been hiking there 30 years and this years snowpack beats anything I have seen.

Candace,were the lakes thawed out?Any pics?

yup. It doesn't snow when it is cold. That water has to evaporate somewhere to get into the atmosphere.