We managed to slip in a 5 day tour between snowfall and rain.  A high tour out to the end of the Glacier Divide; nice snow and fine views.  High runoff thundered down Piute Creek and was flooding McClure Meadow.

Roland Knapp high in the Glacier Divide, Kings Canyon National Park

 North side, Pavilion Dome, John Muir Wilderness

 Evening, Mt Humpherys, John Muir Wilderness

The road is longer and rockier than I recall.  Truck stalled in drift. Deer rise from evening bed. Morning sun on spring snow. Musky scent of damp sage and thawing meadow.  No partner, no camera. Snow is punchy in the trees, shallow freeze.  

Is this the correct couloir?  So short from below.  Nice people kicked steps for the old man; yesterday?  Shadows bend, arcing sun, snow softens. Ice clinging to rock, nocturnal, falling, smashing, thousand of glittering crystals.

Skiing is good.

Laps on cones of corn.  Granite towers, stripped cliffs, sea floor on it's side. Which way out?  Down canyon of boulders left by ancient ice?  Heavy legs, skins slip on steep snow, up again.  Couloir to green meadow below. Singing brook, paintbrush bloom.

May 9  Emerson/Wahoo 

We have just returned from skiing and measuring snow (in that order) over Kearsarge Pass in Sequoia National Park. The snow courses at Bullfrog and Charlotte Lake are both around 100% for the season. 

Skiing was quite good with corn on the south aspects and powder on the north. Great coverage.

We spent the last 12 days of February doing snow surveys for the headwaters of the Kern River. Snow pack was pretty good with 80 to 100% of the yearly water content. We still could use a few good storms in March to bring the entire pack to normal for the year.

Ann Klinefelter at Cottonwood Pass, Golden Trout Wilderness, Inyo National Forest, Sierra Nevada, CA

Ann Klinefelter skiing high on Mt Guyot, Red Spur and the Kaweahs behind, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra Nevada, CA

Jim King and Ann Klinefelter skiing on the Bighorn Plateau, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra Nevada, CA

Ann Klinefelter skiing near Crabtree Pass, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, Sierra Nevada, CA

I spent the last ten days in the Sierra backcountry measuring snow for the California State cooperative snow surveys. We did courses in Humphreys Basin (Paiute Pass), Dusy Basin (Bishop Pass), Bullfrog Lake (Kearsarge Pass) and Virginia Lakes. The snow, though light this year, skiing was really quite good with adequate coverage.

Ann Klinefelter and Pat Armstrong, de-skining at Kearsarge Pass. A bit of a blustery day but wonderful down skiing.  Sequoia Kings Canyon National Park.

Pat Armstrong skiing in Humphreys Basin below Mt Humphreys, John Muir Wilderness, Sierra Nevada