Of Crusty Importance: El Nino

In another indication of the rapidly closing date for beginning the 93-day winter expedition, Montana and Idaho’s mountain snowpack has begun to accumulate. Being early winter however, it comes as no surprise that the NOAA SNOTEL site near Darkhorse Lake (8700 feet), located in the southern Bitterroot Range, shows that in the last five days the snowpack has dropped from nine to six inches. More is on the way though. Beginning tomorrow evening, November 1, another 12 inches could fall. Moreover, with our going into November, the average daily temperature is continuing to drop. Most of that snow is going to remain on the ground until next June.

Of far greater interest to me than the increasing snowpack is the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. I am hoping it plays a strong role in next winter’s snowshoe trip. As of this date though, there is some uncertainty of how strong it will be, or for that matter, when the event will begin. The latest extended forecast, released on October 16, 2014 called for a 67% chance of a mild El Niño beginning by mid-November. From Yellowstone National Park to Butte Montana, the area I will be traveling through next winter, the impact of this weather pattern normally means less snowpack and more importantly, warmer temperatures. Those higher than average temperatures could create a crust I can walk on sooner than the latter days of February.

The reason I don’t begin extended winter trips until at least the beginning of February, is due to the condition of the snow. Although I relish the idea of having enough snowpack to cover brush, timber fall, and rock fields, the real reason I wait until later concerns whether a crust has formed on the snowpack. Traveling in deep powder is a nightmare. It can cut my daily average of 6 and 8 miles down to 3 and 4 miles.

The La Niña winter of 2008 brought the opposite effect of El Niño. With the storms lining up behind each other, I traveled through three feet of powder during the latter days of March. That occurred during the double crossing of the Bitterroot Range west of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. The average day was eight hours of travel with my forward progress between three and four miles. Because I was compelled to build trail without the backpack, I actually traveled between 9 and 12 miles each day. I needed nine days to travel the first 25 miles, which included going over Blodgett Pass. By the last day, even my three-day emergency food supply was at the crumbs level. Fortunately, the resupply bucket was where it was supposed to be.

A crust would have changed the character of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness trip (although I wonder what I would have written about if the trip had gone smoothly). As it were, the snowshoe portion of the trip was only 115 miles, but still took one month to complete.

Using primarily snowshoes, the distance I will travel on the Continental Divide during the winter of 2015 will be 462 miles. I have to be able to average approximately 5 miles per day for 93 days. That is not possible in deep powder. Granted, I will have 107 days of supplies out there, but I will have to make up the days of downtime from the inevitable storms. More than that, for as much as 12 days I will be traveling on rope and crampons, where the measurement of forward progress is in feet rather than miles.

Another troubling consideration is the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, which I will enter 375 miles into the trip. During the winter of 2007, I undertook five trips in this wilderness, where the final trip included crossing it and the Continental Divide. As the result of that experience, I consider it vital to get through the wilderness near the end of the winter rather than begin the following winter’s trip with the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness still in front of me.

So yes, I am watching with a keen interest in what the future holds with the El Niño weather pattern.