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Posted by Ballpark Frank (69.178.8.75) on 11:28:11 01/04/16
In Reply to: As of Saturday and Sunday this week posted by Granite Head
Granite Head,
Thanks for providing status. We are the beneficiaries of your rather unscientific, but very useful, measurement method on snow depth.
I monitor the Mt. Washburn web cams daily. For the last several weeks, the south-facing cam has been occluded by snow/rime ice. A few days ago, we saw the first clearing on the right side of the image. The next day, we had progressed to approximately half the image (right side) providing clear viewing. This morning, the entire cam image is visible. Of course, I wonder whether this was all the product of solar or wind-generated snow removal, or whether a few hardy souls had wandered up from the Tower Junction parking lot on skis, and restored the view. (When I lived in the area, I knew of a number of hard core local winter travelers who would ski all the way up to the top of Washburn. Some would spend the night up there, while others would get an early start, push hard to reach the summit in daylight, and then take advantage of the long downhill ski course to speed their return to Tower Junction. I imagine it would be a lot easier, via much longer photo period and typically warmer weather, to do it in February and March. It would be a bit of needle threading. I've done the ski trip up from the Tower Store via the paved road and the dirt back road down to the campground, both directions, many times. If you do it on a sunny day with relatively warm temps in March or early April, you can find yourself going VERY slow and overheating. The trick is to do that lower section real early in the day and late in the day.)
I very much look forward to seeing photos once they are available.
Ballpark
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