Alan, where are you making plans for, the Eastern Sierra?
I am going to start by heading to Glacier about a week after Labor Day weekend and then work my way down to the Tetons around the 21st to meet up with Ben for a few days. I might steer a course that takes me through the Palouse along my way back home. Fall colors in the NW are just getting started when I get back home so mostly local trips into the Cascades and the Coastal mountains for October.
Ahh. I though when you mentioned smoke it was in reference to the fires in CA. I guess, unfortunately, it's fire season everywhere.
Yup. I have been shafted by wildfire smoke at Glacier a few years back from heaven only knows where west of the park and had a similar experience at Mt. Rainier a few years before that. All you can do is roll the dice and hope.
I had been thinking the air would still be acceptable when I went even if not perfectly clear. The more I read, it's almost as if everything in middle part of the state is being affected. I started looking at SEKI and the air quality there is poor. I looked at Mammoth and June Lake and those areas are very bad too. Given where they are with fighting the fires, I'm starting to think my trip is in serious danger.
Everything depends on the winds and those are local to when/where you are going. In both of the cases I cited above there were no fires near to my destinations - just smoke that was being blown in from somewhere else. In the case of Glacier nothing was predicted and so when I woke up one morning to choking smoke people in the campground were left wondering if we were in potential danger from a nearby fire. Next day was crystal clear as if nothing had happened the day before. Never did hear where the smoke came from.
You're right in that winds make a big difference. The other thing though is the condition under which the crews are fighting the fires. Unfortunately weather is not cooperating and making the job tougher as well as the fact that the Ferguson fire is in a very steep canyon with minimal access roads for men and equipment to utilize. High pressure, low humidity and some gusty winds don't make for a promising forecast. I'm hoping for the best, but am starting to scramble for an alternative plan.
I'm only camping but the hardest reservation to make was the one I already have in Yosemite. Others would be doable but the places I first would want to go are still within the sphere of the bad air from the fires. While it will hopefully improve, I'm running out of time to find an alternate plan.
Never having been to those places I'm not sure how well I'd do planning on such short notice. In general I usually avoid going anywhere in the summer due to crowds and heat. High elevation can overcome heat but I'm not sure about crowd factors. But I'll certainly file those away for future reference.
Wonderful color palate here, John. I really like all of the yellow and brown tones.I recently firmed up my fall colors trip for this year by booking a room in June Lake. So I thought I would post something from a previous fall colors trip. This photo was taken on the back side of the June Lake Loop, just past Silver Lake. I'm hoping the colors are good to me this year. The last two years haven't worked out as well as previous years.
Thanks Douglas. The combination of varying colors in relatively the same place is what drew me to this composition. I like that variety of colors.