Ski ’til July 4th! Watch Yosemite Fall!

Reporting on the record snowfall across the western United States convinced me to plan a last minute trip to Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort in early June. I recruited my husband, fellow meteorologist Jonathan Myers, to venture west with me, to take advantage of the late season snow! We ended up flying into San Francisco, (where my sister lives), and had to drive the looooong way around to get to Mammoth because all of the Sierra Nevada mountain passes were closed (due to the record snow). You know how something that seems likes it’s going to be a huge hassle turns out to be a big blessing? That’s the way our trip went. My Mom convinced us to go to Yosemite National Park to see how the record snowfall and melt had enhanced the waterfalls in the park. Yosemite is not that far from San Francisco-about 4-5 hours. We booked a tent/cabin in Camp Curry and drove over.

Camp Curry, Yosemite National Park

This is a picture of our cabin/tent. They have heated cabins, but since we booked at the last minute, we bundled up with wools blankets and sleeping bags with overnight temperatures in the 30s.  At about 4am, I started asking if we could just get up and go hiking since I was freezing. Everybody finally got up at about 5:15am and we were on the trail to Vernal Falls by 6.

Vernal Falls, Yosemite National Park

The hike to Vernal Falls is only about 3 miles round trip. In fact, by 6:40, we only had .3 miles until we got to the top. That’s about 17-18 hundred feet, right? My Mom and I had a little optimistic mid-hike meeting, saying we should go on to Nevada Falls, which is 5-6 miles round trip since we were making such good time. Yeah, no. The last .3 miles is straight up, stairs, with a mist coming off the falls that soaks you from head to foot. You’d be shivering if you weren’t sweating so much from the hike.  Don’t get me wrong. It was beautiful, inspiring, something I’m so glad we did. But, it was not an easy 1.6 mile hike. We did continue about a 1/2 mile more to get this beautiful sunrise shot of Nevada Falls.

Nevada Falls Sunrise, Yosemite National Park

If I were to do Vernal Falls and/or Nevada Falls again, I would recommend carrying a poncho, water, and snacks! A peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a little coffee would have tasted so good as we watched this sunrise! We were very happy that we got on the trail so early. When we were hiking downhill at 8am, there was a line of summer hikers headed up. It’s punishing to get up before the sun comes up to hike, but it’s worth it when there’s nobody on the trail and you get the sunrise views.

Later, we drove around and looked at some of the other waterfalls, including the famous Yosemite Falls which is the tallest waterfall in the United States. The snowfall over the Sierra this year is 178% of normal, and the output from Yosemite Falls at the time of this picture was 1600 cubic feet per second. It was beautiful.

Yosemite Falls, Yosemite National Park

When we left Yosemite, we had to head back toward the west, then north and then east again because the mountain pass east from Yosemite was closed. If Tioga Pass (Highway 120) had been open, it would have taken us 2-3 hours to get to Mammoth. Instead, it took about 10 hours!!! Thank goodness the views were amazing. As I’m writing this, I’m disappointed we didn’t capture the shot as we rounded the bend on U.S. Highway 50 into South Lake Tahoe and saw the incredible view of the lake, the glacier mountains and the valley floor. It was a very steep mountain pass and there was nowhere to pull over!

As we drove toward South Lake Tahoe, we saw a roadside construction sign that said Monitor Pass was open, so we headed over Highway 89 toward US 395 that would take us into Mammoth. Highway 89 is a remote highway that takes you through Markleeville, California.  More windy roads without guard rails, more incredible, once-in-a-lifetime vistas. There is a bike ride that goes over these mountain passes in the summertime called the Death Ride.

We spent two days in Mammoth. Spring skiing is always a good trip because there are less people on the mountain and it’s warmer. The ski conditions were also remarkable for the time of year. The mountain is open daily until July 4th.

On the way back, we found out Caltrans had just cleared Highway 108 or Sonora Pass. A long and windy trail over the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, it passes US military training camps and freshwater rivers filled with recent snowmelt. The top of the pass still had 10-15′ of snow. Incredible.

Sonora Pass, 9,624'

We ran into a German couple right by this sign, we had both stopped to get pictures of the snow. Luckily, we made it to this sign just before darkness fell. It was still a long drive to the bottom of the mountain and the lights of the interstate.

Dawn Brown, FOX 8 New Orleans

Winter Arrives After Storm Quiets

Today is the first official day of winter! It may seem a little late to announce it, after a blizzard left record snow in the East, but today marked the Winter Solstice.

Space Shot, Blizzard of 2009, Image: NASA

NASA captured this image of the Mid-Atlantic on December 20th. Washington D.C. is noted in the picture.

The article that accompanied the image states:

“The Mid-Atlantic states were completely white on Sunday, December 20, 2009, in the wake of a record-breaking snow storm. The storm deposited between 12 and 30 inches of snow in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. on December 19, according to the National Weather Service. For many locations, the snowfall totals broke records for the most snow to fall in a single December day.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this view of the Chesapeake Bay region as the clouds were clearing on December 20. The snow highlights the courses of the Potomac and Susquehanna Rivers from the Appalachian Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay. The ridges and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains are similarly highlighted. The forested peaks are darker than the snow-covered valleys.

The massive snow storm was a Nor’easter, a powerful storm characterized by a strong low-pressure center that forms in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean and moves northward up the Eastern seaboard. In the Northern Hemisphere, winds flow in toward the center of a low-pressure area in a counter-clockwise spiral, which means that as the storm heads north, the leading winds come in off the ocean from the northeast.” (Source: NASA, Earth Observatory)

Sierra Nevada Mountain Range

While a blizzard was coating the East Coast with snow, disrupting travel, and causing havoc for residents from the Carolinas to New England, we were enjoying 5 days of peaceful sunshine in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. I visited Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort with my family. After a storm left more than 5′ of snow on the mountain, we enjoyed the packed powder with sunshine!

More storms head east this week! I’ll have more tomorrow.

-Dawn Brown