Sunday, June 3, 2018

Death of a Snowpack

Well, it's over for me.  My interest in skiing in Utah right now is zilch.  I've converted to hiking and biking and leave the remainder of the rotting snow to the true diehards.

The view from Gobblers Knob this morning showed snow down to perhaps 9500 feet on the north-facing side of the divide between Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons, with significant variations.  


I suspect there's some fun skiing up there for those willing to haul in the gear.  An early start is essential, not only for firm snow, but just to find a parking spot at the S-curves.  Holy Moly were there a lot of cars there when I drove down the canyon at noon.  Maybe they should do a shuttle just for that area.

The Alta-Collins snow stake dropped below 30 inches for the first time today.  Looks like a loss of about 55 inches in the past 30 days.


I give it about 7-10 days to hit rock bottom given the warmth of the forecast.  Such a shame we can't keep some of the snow around for the start of next season.

The hiking this morning was already too hot for my blood, but tomorrow looks to be uglier.  NWS forecast below.

Source: NWS
Simply unacceptable.

1 comment:

  1. Do you think there are any articles that show that snow stuck around for the entire summer in and around the Wasatch. I know there was a good article a few years back about the timp glacier but I’d be curious about other aspects of th Wasatch.

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