Records amounts of snow in Yosemite National Park high country bring wonder and danger.
massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevada
“All of the water is a huge change from the previous few years,” said Cory Goehring, lead naturalist for the Yosemite Conservancy, a San Francisco nonprofit group that runs outdoor programs in the park. “The meadows are wet and lush. The Merced River is rising. It’s raging. And the waterfalls? They are so loud, they sound like an airplane taking off with how loud they are.”
On April 1, park officials measured the snowpack at Tuolumne Meadows at 15 feet deep — breaking the record from 1983 for the deepest April 1 measurement ever recorded, with records dating back to 1930. A few days later, it snowed 2 feet more in the area, which sits at about 8,600 feet elevation. Yosemite was closed for three weeks from Feb. 25 to March 18 as snow in Yosemite Valley accumulated to 10 feet deep. Powerlines fell. Roofs collapsed. Trees snapped. The visitor center leaked. Fire hydrants were buried. Dump trucks hauled snow from roads so supplies could be brought to stores and ranger homes.
Despite a snowpack that is two-and-a-half times the historical average in the high country, the animals there should be fine, experts said. In very snowy years, some move to lower elevations, some delay reproduction, some hibernate.
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