Indian Heaven (Bird Mtn) 03-Aug-2011

[drm]

The GPNF has recently added trail reports for most of the main trails into Indian Heaven onto their main recreation/conditions page. Most trails run into snow less than a mile from trailhead, and melted trail sections have lots of standing water.

The southern PCT section is the lowest in the wilderness and has the best chance for being melted out. Same for the road to Red Mountain. But I bet that Indian racetrack itself is a swamp or marsh now and the north-facing trail between racetrack and the lookout is probably in deep snow.

[VanMarmot]

great report and pics van. do you know if the indian race track and red mountain area are melted out at all yet? im an indian heaven newb and would love to get up there for only my third trip ever! but the snow has been hard to calculate other than the fact that there's still some to deal with.

Well, from what I encountered, and could see from atop Bird Mtn, there's a lot more than just "some" snow to deal with even this far into summer. What's left under the trees is thick (2-6'), solid, and melting slowly. I'm not good at forecasting snow melt but my guess is that it'll be at least a month before the snow clears - and even then you may still have to contend with flooded, boggy, muddy conditions. Usually all of Indian Heaven is great in late Sept/early Oct but I'm not sure it will be this year.

[Don Nelsen]

Bruce, thanks for the report and great photos. This snow is truly epic this year - I wonder how much of this the foliage can take and still survive the coming winter.

Don

Don,

I guess, over time, vegetation in this area has survived various shifts in the weather so I suppose it'll be OK in the long run. But I do wonder whether the open meadows will melt out and drain in time for any of the huckleberry plants to produce a harvest this year, before the days shorten and it starts snowing (again)?

You changed your picture - looks like Roswell (or is it Area 51?).

Bruce

Yes, the vegetation does survive and moves up and back down a mountain as the climate shifts. In our too short lives we see only a brief moment. I've noticed groves of hemlocks appear over the years in areas that used to stay snowcovered. As those areas melted out the trees quickly colonized. Now, over the past few years as the snow increases they are beleaguered, to say the least. We have had 15 winters now with snow way above average (about 170% looking at the snotel site at northfork) and this year is really interesting. Here is a pic of a few of those hemlocks taken today on the Timberline trail near Cairn Basin:



This pattern might change next year and it may get worse, - who knows.

Dn

PS: yep, that pic was taken in Roswell at the UFO museum/education center in the center of town.
Have to get an update every now and then for all those nano devices, ya know.

[ceiliazul]

I treked thru Indian Heaven and found the basin lakes melting out (tons of bugs), PCT completely covered from the old basin lakes trail heading North. Compass and sharp eyes were required to find a path to Blue lake... which was completely clear of snow. The designated camp spots I saw were completely dry. The Thomas Lak trail was completely covered in most places, and in fact we lost the trail and used our compass to find Eunice lke, after which we regained the trail, now clear, and made our LZ at Thomas lake trailhead.