Eastern Sierra Backcountry Snow Report – January 28, 2015

Not feeling too inspired to update the last report, but I figured we all could use another shot of Groundhog Day humor. Maybe we are all becoming better people for living the same dry and stormless winter weather day after day:

Unfortunately, this is not looking to be like last year where the end of January yielded a decent winter storm to end the dry spell and we could ski again on Groundhog Day. This year we are currently having a little cloud cover and light showers and then the forecast goes dry and warm for the next week. In fact, there is nothing interesting in the weather models through the middle of February, and what the groundhog says probably won’t change that. After a period of record-crushing high temperatures, the Sierra is looking brown. It looks and feels a lot like mid-October under high pressure. We are canceling avalanche courses and ski trips until the next decent storm and we have never had to do that in February in 20 years of avalanche education. Ski resorts in Tahoe are closing or talking about it. June Mountain may close early. Mammoth is getting ready to lay off staff and shut down parts of the mountain. Backcountry ice skaters, rock climbers, and desert rats rejoice! The flowers are starting to bloom!

This report is going to see its shadow and go into hibernation until there is something more exciting to talk about. You can assume that no news is bad news and snow news is good news. Feel free to go ahead and shave your legs for bicycling season, go for a trail run or whatever else people do in winter in snowless mountains. Let me know when it starts snowing. I’ll be either be running around the dry Sierra, down in the Owens River Gorge seeking shade, or on a road trip to ski somewhere else. Cheers, H