Keep an Open Plan

It's springtime---the time year when a young man's head turns to....plans for backpacking. Young women, too. And old people. Everybody! Check out those maps and start finding the routes!

We're getting lots of questions about what it is going to be like in May or June. And the answer is:

We don't know. So much depends on the weather between now and then that it is really impossible to say. We got snow at 5,000 feet in Yosemite a couple of years ago in mid-June...and that's not really unusual. That's our tent in the photo near Hetch-hetchy.

So yes, this has been a very dry year. Depressingly so. And it is pretty safe to assume that water is going to be scarce later on in the summer. But that doesn't mean that the first part of this summer is going to be like April in Paris. It could be like eve y other year in the Sierra, when you can expect storms at any time, and snow at the higher elevations.

So the best plan of all is to plan carefully---and then leave room in the plan for adjustments like the weather, or high creeks. Check out the one at right---we turned around at that one.

Because when it comes to Mother Nature, it's best to pay attention to her.