How far to the snow?

[TomK]

I'm pleased you actually managed to visit somewhere interesting, ironyak! I'm not sure when the Mauna Kea access road will re-open, it was a particularly brutal winter storm at the summit. We've just managed to become operational again tonight. Even the public "facilities" are out of commission for the moment...

http://darkerview.com/wordpress/?p=14684

[ironyak]

Looks like you have lots more snow up at the summit than we saw. Mauna Loa appears to also have a fair amount depending on how far you're willing/able to take the trail past the observatory towards ths summit. We just went far enough to find a big enough snow patch to slide down and get in our snowman building and snowball fights.

We had a good time at the MK VIS as well. Checked out the sunspots, got some hot chocolate, and had a nice walk around the silverswords. Also got some belated but stellar Christmas socks. (They have ice scrapers as well - might help with that lua at the summit

Up at ~10k ft on two different volcanoes, played in the snow, and still had time for the beach all in one day - great reminder how amazing it is to live here!

[Mimosa]

A few decades ago,maybe mid 1960s,was over 60 feet of snow on both peaks,even down in the saddle was 5 feet of snow.
The Mtns never melted snow even in summers for almost 3 years in a row.

In 1968 or 1970,kinda fuzzy in years remembrance about 20ft of snow and several tens of feet deep drifts that stayed till almost mid august.

This is now the water coming though ice ponds,takes about 30 years to percolate .The more snow people take down the mountain to show off in town,the less for our aina.

But as kids we all did it,and even today it is popular,but it is an eco disaster and should be banned practice or very limited to just 10 gallon cooler per vehicle per year.

[ironyak]

20 - 60 ft of snow would be amazing! Adding that to next year's list for Santa along with some new snowshoes.

When I told the kiddos about your 3 day backcountry jeep crawls up and down the mountain they exclaimed "can we do that? that's awesome!"

You can add them to your fan list, along with me, and many others I'm sure. Many thanks - what you share is literally quite awesome.

[Mimosa]

The clock tiks for new comers,usually 48 months tops and they bail.
Even at 10 years here still new comers but a bit more seasoned.
At 20 to 30 years here,some finally get the hang of it.
Glad the kids enjoy da memories from tutu and tata.

We had an amazing day full of magical goodness from dawn to dusk.

Never left the farm yet fed 1000s of kids all around island who do not have enough to eat.

Tutu got it together for those families less fortunate than most of us.We have over 20 acres of non grafted fruit tree's,so tutu and grand kids have been busy since new years harvesting our extras.
Not food basket donation,our own church network.School starts friday anew,the kids will have good nutrition to start the next few weeks of school and learning.Tutu is starting nutrition classes via the church to teach families,how to spend wisely on there EBT instead of chemical soups in a can,box or frozen.

If you have a 1942 Jeep that is mountin goat tough and modified for a'a trek ing,an all the tools needed to maintain an fix if need be,then good project for the kids n you.

Second best adventure is take a weekend hike over nighter down the pali at Halina Pali and back up.

Be forewarned though,very remote and NO cell phone reception,check in with park rangers 1st so they know you are down there.

Take choke water,1st aid and extra socks.

We jog down even in our 90s to the brackish water ponds and coming back up is one buggah.Even over thanks giving it was a family day hike mostly for the grandkids.


After you do that day hike or over nighter,make a new thread an let us know how kiddies and adults fared.

LOL.............

[ironyak]

Originally posted by Obie
I can post the snowfall amounts back to the 1960's but don't see the sense in burning up the bandwidth !

A link is worth a few kilobytes methinks. All the snow data I've seen is very incomplete and in contrast to direct observations.

[ironyak]

You have 10,000 years of data all the way back to the last ice age? Even better!

So about that link...

[TomK]

I'd also be interested in seeing a link to snowfall amounts at the summit. As far as I'm aware these amounts aren't recorded but I could be wrong.

[TomK]

The position is given here:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMAIN.pl?hi6183

If you explore the site a little further you'll see there is no snowfall data recorded, so am still curious how you could post the snowfall amounts back to the 1960s. Maybe I'll check with the MKWC to see if your claim is accurate. On the other hand, I'm also skeptical of the 60 ft of snow claim, although I could imagine that amount falling over an entire very bad winter.

[Obie]

I give !!