Weather Caution Next Week

[SSSdave]

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Well folks, its time to stop visiting the fridge. The monsoon has subsided at least within the near 10-day forecasts to more manageable levels. Our landscapes have received an unexpected mid summer watering for the recent decade records. How will aesthetics in the range respond with greenery, dazzling spring whitewater runoff streams warmer than usual snow melt, and hopefully some interesting wildflowers especially lupine plains and envigorated waterfall gardens . Areas with lots of draining bedrock slabs could be especially fun in the near term. Places like upper Red Mountain Basin and southern Emigrant Basin. Be sure to study the rainfall maps as strong rainfall events were uneven. At end of the event 72 hour totals.

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Just picked up a leisurely for we old folks 6 day permit from rec dot gov for an often quota issue Sabrina Basin trailhead going in 8/10 and exiting 8/15. Pee Wee 2x Moonlight Donkey. My last visit was smoked out in 2015. Very rich subject area for a photographer that rambles about. Aquamarine glacial rock milk Moonlight Lake. Where the magenta dots line up is precip for the upper Sabrina Basin so am expecting most excellent streams draining out of all the immense talus zones. Note there are still 5 more permits open for the Wednesday.

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Close-up of the towering Powell Rock Glacier:

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Where the magenta dots line up is precip for the upper Sabrina Basin.

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[SSSdave]

Google Earth is an incredible tool in my lifetime. Oblique aerial view across Sabrina Basin basin Middle Fork Of Bishop Creek down canyon.

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And looking up canyon:

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[wildhiker]

Just came back from a 6-day backpack trip in this monsoon flow in the high country around Mt. Lyell in Yosemite Park. Substantial rain every day Monday 8/1 through Friday 8/5. Boots and socks got soaked on Monday and never dried out all week. All days except Friday included thunderstorms with often continuous thunder. Friday had no thunder, just continuous light to moderate rain from 2:30 am (it woke me up) until about 3 pm. Thursday had the heaviest rain all afternoon - I guess about 2 inches at upper Rush Creek where I was camped. Between the Thursday heavy rain and the Friday all-day rain, every low spot was a big puddle, the trail was a stream, every little rivulet became a running creek and every creek a raging river. Went north over Donohue Pass on Friday back to Lyell Canyon on the JMT. The two trail crossings of the Lyell Fork Tuolumne River were intimidating to me, although I had found both to be easy just three days earlier going the other way. Both are at the outlets of tarns, followed immediately by roaring cascades and even waterfalls. Not a place you want to slip! At the upper crossing, the stepping stones I used to cross with dry feet on Tuesday were about 1 to 1.5 feet underwater. I was still able to carefully wade only shin-deep by stepping on the tops of those same stones and bracing myself against the strong current with my hiking pole. But a slip off one of those underwater stones would have plunged me into waist deep water. The lower crossing was a wade about hip deep. I took the advice of a hiker coming the other way and avoided that crossing by fording the river just upstream from the tarn, off trail, where it had braided into two wide streams each about shin deep, and then working my way around the tarn.

The most interesting result of so much water pouring off the mountains was seeing that the upper meadows in Lyell Canyon, where the river normally makes about 5 serpentine meanders, were flooded into a single lake! The lake had drained away and the river was back in its channel on Saturday morning, but the meadows were awfully soggy!

At least in this upper part of Yosemite Park, streams should all be running into late season just from this monsoon event.

-Phil

[SSSdave]

Something to consider in the High Sierra over the near term given the record amounts of monsoon rainfall these last two weeks, is instability in talus, especially rock glaciers. The water will act as a lubricant within the mass of rock, sand, soil debris. Thus some areas that have not moved in decades could already be stressing stability forces. One of the locations I'll be photographing during mornings is the aesthetic inlet zone of Moonlight Lake that is right in front of the towering Powel Rock Glacier. Had considered camping one day near the inlet zone however upon consideration of the rains, decided the northeast end of the lake was a more prudent choice for peace of mind. What is more dangerously unstable is high country talus after earthquakes.

One this Google Earth image from September 14, 2013, one can tell from shadows, this is an early morning capture. Also note the whitish frozen ice covering parts of the stream. Mornings can indeed be icy at 11,000 feet as Fall rises.

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[SSSdave]

Per above post, just returned today 8/15 from the noted trip into the upper Middle Fork of Bishop Creek areas. Indeed per forecasts, day I drove in Tuesday was the last day with monsoon thunderstorms as enjoyed 6 days of decent weather, no storms, occasional clouds, minor breezes, and very clear air. Thankful for the kind of web information now available. Expect after weeks of post processing, the trip will be one of my most productive ever. As hoped, the monsoon rains allowed 11k+ turf and mossy zones to provide an excellent green look with some nice areas with late species like lupine, little elephants heads, and Lemmon's paintbrush. As I drove out Sunday noticed smoke in the atmosphere west of the Ritter Range (Red Fire) that became obvious as a haze from Mammoth Lakes northward including the Mono Lake basin I'd hoped to work on my return road trip.

[SSSdave]

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Well have processed 5 images so far this week and many more to do. The below at 11k+ shows the monsoon rains just 2 weeks after it began have given late season species wildflowers, turf grasses and mosses a late season green surge. The above downsized for web 2 column vertical stitch image used my 19mm wide angle Sigma from 32 focus stack blended shots. Then the below is 100% crop that shows the real sharpness of the lupine with Lemmon's paintbrush and monkeyflowers. In the background, Clyde Spires and Picture Peak. Oddly I didn't seen any Pacific tree frog tadpoles, much less Yosemite toads in any of the turf pools where fish cannot reach..

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This next also downsized for web image with a foreground of erratics on glaciated bedrock looks NNW down on Blue Lake at 10380 with Mt. Emerson and rusty metasedimentary Piute Crags behind shows not a fleck on snow left on those drier south facing slopes. While most trees around the forested lake are lodgepole pine, many those on the distant ridges would be whitebark pine including the wind stunted ones on the rusty crags right ridgeline. At this elevation rains also had affects in usual marshy and stream areas but generally had a drier look with vegetation past peak. Using 56mm Sigma 2 column stitch blended 35 image focus stack blend 6500x5900 pixels.

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