Hulk August

Does anyone know what the weather is typically like in August? Temps, rain, etc?

I am planning a trip there to spend a week and trying to figure out what clothes are best to pack.

Thanks! 

Adam,

I take it you've never been to the Sierra before?

Likely weather: Lows in the 40's. Highs in the 50's to 60's. Have rain gear, as afternoon thunderstorms are common. It can snow anytime and temperatures could drop into the 30's.

Don't be on a peak or ridge if dark clouds are moving in. You don't want to be a lightning rod. Start your days early.

Have fun!

FrankPSwrote:

Adam,

I take it you've never been to the Sierra before?

Likely weather: Lows in the 40's. Highs in the 50's to 60's. Have rain gear, as afternoon thunderstorms are common. It can snow anytime and temperatures could drop into the 30's.

Have fun!

Nope I have not.

The Hulk has been on my radar for a very long time but I have been waiting until I felt comfortable leading mid 11s on gear. 

Thank you for the quick response!

Have fun Adam! Like Frank says Start early.
Don’t know your itinerary, but a good introduction to Sierra can be had, down by Bishop, on Cardinal Pinnacle. Very close to a road, but great steep crack climbing to be found.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105863060/cucumbers

Guy Keeseewrote:

Have fun Adam! Like Frank says Start early.
Don’t know your itinerary, but a good introduction to Sierra can be had, down by Bishop, on Cardinal Pinnacle. Very close to a road, but great steep crack climbing to be found.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105863060/cucumbers

I’ve climbed at cardinal pinnacle a while back. Pretty cool place! We are gonna backpack to the Hulk (getting our permits soon). I’ve been eying up some of the 11s such as Tradewinds and Sunspot Dihedral 

Adam Hammerwrote:

I’ve climbed at cardinal pinnacle a while back. 

So if you have climbed on Cardinal Pinnacle you have climbed in the eastern Sierra.

Frank's estimate of daytime August temps at 11000 feet in the eastern Sierra strikes me as low.  I'm often seeking shade for climbing at 9 or 10K in the eastern Sierra in August as the sun temps can be in the 80s.  But it's certainly easy to remove layers, and it's good to be prepared for the cold. Nightime temps can be quite cold.   Even if storms make your trip objective undoable, there is an infinite amount of rock not very far away so there is always something to climb.

Out of curiosity, do you know why the last 6 pages of your tick list has year dates ranging from well before you were born?

phylp phylpwrote:

So if you have climbed on Cardinal Pinnacle you have climbed in the eastern Sierra.

Frank's estimate of daytime August temps at 11000 feet in the eastern Sierra strikes me as low.  I'm often seeking shade for climbing at 9 or 10K in the eastern Sierra in August as the sun temps can be in the 80s.  But it's certainly easy to remove layers, and it's good to be prepared for the cold. Nightime temps can be quite cold.   Even if storms make your trip objective undoable, there is an infinite amount of rock not very far away so there is always something to climb.

Out of curiosity, do you know why the last 6 pages of your tick list has year dates ranging from well before you were born?

Should I aim for a different time then? I'm pretty flexible with flying out there. 

Those ticks are routes I've done that I didn’t record the dates of (before I was on Mountain Project). When you remove the date off a tick, those are the dates they give ya. I guess I can travel time...

Generally the middle of summer is a good time to climb in the mountains in the entire northern hemisphere 

August weather in the Sierra is generally good. The bigger risk that could ruin your trip isn't weather, but smoke. If there is a fire upwind of you, even far away, it can make for miserable conditions. Not really any way to predict this in advance though; just keep an eye on fire and smoke conditions over the summer and be prepared to pivot (or suffer) if the Hulk is smoked out.

You could go the second half of June. Unless we have a big snow year (unlikely at this point), there may be a bit of snow on the approach but manageable with only microspikes.  There would be no snow on the climb. Less risk of wildfires but the mosquitoes would be worse. A little longer days too. And less people, probably.  We did a trip in late May 2021 (low snow year) and it was awesome.

I asked a friend who has climbed there many times, and he said the best is anytime July-September, depending on snowpack. 

Thunderstorms become more common at about the start of August. They come up from the monsoons in Arizona. But they build up later in the day. Usually. Last August l had to give up climbing a 14er because thunderstorms were forecast every weekend. But you can work around that more easily at the Hulk.

Like someone else said, if the clouds start to look at all sketchy, it’s time to rap down to the valley. 

Replying for the updates.

phylp phylpwrote:

Out of curiosity, do you know why the last 6 pages of your tick list has year dates ranging from well before you were born?

not just any date, it's unix time 0 :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time