by JBella » Wed Jun 07, 2017 8:36 am
We hiked much of the Williams Lake trail before heading west into the wilderness yesterday, June 6. The snow line is just before the first sign on the trail, where it leaves the wider, rocky road and continues into the forest. Above there, about 75% of the trail is beneath 2-4 feet of snow, with intermittent sections where the snow has melted and there was a lot of mud and water running everywhere. Before 10 am the snow was solid enough to walk on, after then it was warming enough to posthole. There is a large tree down across the trail a short ways north of the wilderness boundary sign which requires navigating around one side or the other. Above Williams Lake, most southerly aspects have melted down to rocks and ground, shadier and cooler north aspects are still holding a respectable snowpack, slightly below average depth for the first week of June. We heard and witnessed a rock fall in the southern-most avalanche path on Kachina's east side, several large boulders fell from the cliffs and rolled down the snowfields to where the slope angle levels a bit. Cornice and rock falls will be an inherent concern on these higher elevation, leeward slopes for a while, avalanche danger along the trail is minimal to none as most of the snow in the west-facing slide paths has melted, only a few patches are lingering on that side. The Kachina Pond has melted out completely, riding down from there required hiking between patches of snow. The upper, north facing terrain on Kachina and Lake Fork is still filled in, Sin Nombre had some near-top to treeline lines visible.