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Post by cweston on May 23, 2019 13:54:51 GMT -8
If you go up the West Fork of the Rio Santa Barbara, you will definitely hit deep snow once over 11000 feet. The pass is at 12k. Once you get above treeline, the way with be apparent, but down in the trees, the trail isn't that well marked when the ground is covered in snow. And since that is all north facing slope, you'll encounter knee deep snow this time of year. I definitely second this. I've attempted the West Fork a couple times Memorial Day weekend years back, and it is exactly as offtrail describes. Both navigation and travel are tough when you hit snow below the treeline.
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Post by rustyshackleford on Jun 18, 2019 5:53:12 GMT -8
Sorry I'm just now posting - I've been traveling a lot and catching up with work. I stayed on the south side of the divide this year. As expected, lots of snow. For example at the Jacks Creek trail, intermittent snow occurred at around 10,300' and became 100% snow coverage around 10,700'. Luckily, the weather was cool, with nightly lows in the mid to low 20s. So traveling on snow was fairly easy for the first half of the day - nice and crusty with minimal postholing. I was fine in trail runners with gaiters. I mostly stayed out of snow in the later half of the days. Below is a picture of East Pecos Baldy, lake still frozen over, on May 29th. The lake is at ~11,450'. Beware...Trail 259 (Dockweiler) between Jacks Creek and Pecos River has a section of about 3/4 mile (i'm guessing) that felt more like 5 miles due to the insane number of blowdowns making travel very difficult and navigation skills required. I bet it took me 2 hours to get past this section.
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toejam
Trail Wise!
Hiking to raise awareness
Posts: 1,795
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Post by toejam on Jun 18, 2019 16:43:56 GMT -8
Wow! That's a lot of snow. My guess was really wrong.
There were 3 times I think when I left the Pecos because of snow in May and drove a couple hundred miles south to finish the vacation.
Hope you had a good time.
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Post by rustyshackleford on Jun 20, 2019 7:47:10 GMT -8
I had a great time. Pecos Baldy Lake was the highest elevation I hiked because of snow so I didn't get to any summits but had plenty of good views still and wonderful solitude in the mountains. I do think I'll return to alpine country in the summer next time so that I can roam where I want.
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