Advice for Desolation Wilderness June 9 2017, Echo to Aloha
Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:17 pm
Hi, new member, hope this post is appropriate for this forum.
Have a 2 day permit for Desolation Wilderness starting this Friday (June 9, 2017).
Plan to start at Echo Lake.
Permit night #1 is Lake of the Woods.
Would be fine going to Aloha for night #2.
I will be with 2 teenage daughters.
I have a decent amount of 3 season fair weather (well, some rain and lightning storms)
SIerra experience including doing the JMT 2y ago.
From the experience page I think this is accurate for me:
Level 3- Numerous backpacking trips, some x-country travel
Class 2 terrain/pass/x-country
My daughters are probably half a level or class less experienced than me.
Our idea on this trip is to get exposure to shoulder season and snow backpacking in June in a familiar area.
We have been to Desolation numerous times over the last 5 years.
We have no experience with snow however.
We are OK doing what we would do on an easy backpack trip where you mostly
keep to the trails i.e. there are no steep ascents planned on this trip.
Our tent is a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL3 and we can double up on sleeping pads.
We have decent down sleeping bags.
Questions are:
- Is it safe to assume the road from Hwy 50 to Echo Lake is still snowed in?
- What is the trail like along Echo Lake and then beyond up to Aloha?
- Is there any bare ground exposed in any these areas now (Echo to Aloha).
- What do people recommend in terms of footwear? We are used to trail runners and I see that Skurka
seems to say that such things are OK in the snow though I still find that hard to believe..
http://andrewskurka.com/2017/backpackin ... onditions/
- Should we look into snow shoe rental? Or invest in microspikes for our party of 3?
- Do I need some kind of (avalanche) shovel for digging a platform for the tent?
- Is this trip a bad idea due to some combination of lack of experience, amount of snow still around, possibility of rain
in Friday, and or possibility of scorching sun and lots of very wet snow...
thx,
Dave
PS
I am aware of this page http://desowv.org/trail-conditions but looking for more detailed first hand data..
Have a 2 day permit for Desolation Wilderness starting this Friday (June 9, 2017).
Plan to start at Echo Lake.
Permit night #1 is Lake of the Woods.
Would be fine going to Aloha for night #2.
I will be with 2 teenage daughters.
I have a decent amount of 3 season fair weather (well, some rain and lightning storms)
SIerra experience including doing the JMT 2y ago.
From the experience page I think this is accurate for me:
Level 3- Numerous backpacking trips, some x-country travel
Class 2 terrain/pass/x-country
My daughters are probably half a level or class less experienced than me.
Our idea on this trip is to get exposure to shoulder season and snow backpacking in June in a familiar area.
We have been to Desolation numerous times over the last 5 years.
We have no experience with snow however.
We are OK doing what we would do on an easy backpack trip where you mostly
keep to the trails i.e. there are no steep ascents planned on this trip.
Our tent is a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL3 and we can double up on sleeping pads.
We have decent down sleeping bags.
Questions are:
- Is it safe to assume the road from Hwy 50 to Echo Lake is still snowed in?
- What is the trail like along Echo Lake and then beyond up to Aloha?
- Is there any bare ground exposed in any these areas now (Echo to Aloha).
- What do people recommend in terms of footwear? We are used to trail runners and I see that Skurka
seems to say that such things are OK in the snow though I still find that hard to believe..
http://andrewskurka.com/2017/backpackin ... onditions/
- Should we look into snow shoe rental? Or invest in microspikes for our party of 3?
- Do I need some kind of (avalanche) shovel for digging a platform for the tent?
- Is this trip a bad idea due to some combination of lack of experience, amount of snow still around, possibility of rain
in Friday, and or possibility of scorching sun and lots of very wet snow...
thx,
Dave
PS
I am aware of this page http://desowv.org/trail-conditions but looking for more detailed first hand data..