Conditions on North Palisade U-Notch

Hi y'all,

I'm live out of state and am not sure how things are shaping up in the sierra this winter. Particularly, I'm interested in what conditions on the U-Notch will be like in about a month. I was up there in Feb 2012 and it was mainly ice but that was years ago and things have changed. The Sierra has received some snow this winter, I believe more than last year, and I'm wonder what the U-Notch will be looking like. Do you think it'll be a snow climb? ice climb? thin snow on top rock? any insight would be appreciated.

thanks!

My vote will be snow. There is so much this year

That is a cool map/tool, but there will very likely be more than a foot of snow in the area. I climbed it last April and we found several pitches of ice lower in the couloir, and snow covered rock up high.

With the winter we're having, I would expect mostly snow climbing with some exposed ice (likely in places where the wind has stripped snow away). Some of that snow could be pretty deep, as in ski or snowshoe worthy. Above the U-Notch proper expect a mix of dry and snow covered rock, depending on recent weather.

I found it to read surprisingly low in the area, yeah. In the past it has fairly accurate though.

thanks for the input

Aaron.Baumann wrote:I found it to read surprisingly low in the area, yeah. In the past it has fairly accurate though.