2015 Mountain Backpacking - Disappointment and Opportunity

It's definitely a changing world. Man may have an impact on it now, for better or worse, but this earth has gone through ice ages and global warming periods far before man had any significant impact on its environment. It's not fun to think about what the next few years hold in store if the drought across the west continues like this. At what point do we see a mass migration of people moving back East, where wetter weather and water is a bit more consistent?
 
Brian McInerney's Utah Water Supply Briefing - this excellent presentation details this record setting water year in the mountain west and demonstrates the impact on our snowpack and the record high temperatures we've been seeing. Recommended for all but especially for us eager high mountain travelers.
 
WasatchWill said:
It's definitely a changing world. Man may have an impact on it now, for better or worse, but this earth has gone through ice ages and global warming periods far before man had any significant impact on its environment.
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Correct me if i am wrong, but i believe the glaciers for the most part are left over from the Ice Age, and have been melting at a significant pace, due to man made behavior. They will only start re-forming after humans have stopped warming our planet. This is not a natural occurring "cyclical" issue, that has happened in the past. This is man made, and only we can stop it.
 
langutah said:
Brian McInerney's Utah Water Supply Briefing - this excellent presentation details this record setting water year in the mountain west and demonstrates the impact on our snowpack and the record high temperatures we've been seeing. Recommended for all but especially for us eager high mountain travelers.
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Very informative @langutah - thanks for sharing.
 
This is man made, and if we want to survive, we have to stop it.
Obviously the earth will eventually repair itself after we have made it uninhabitable and have disappeared. My point is this is not a natural cycle.
I believe humans can work with our environment to create healthy, sustainable ways of living.
 
I have been watching the north slope of the Uinta snow totals quite closely.
Looking that the weather stations data.

Steel creek station 34 inches at 10,100 ft.
Buck pasture 19 inches at 9,800 ft.
Hewinta 10 inches at 9,500 ft.
Trout creek 5 inches at 9,400 ft.
Hole in the rock 1 inch at 9,400 ft.
Kings cabin 1 inch at 8,730 ft.

Exciting to think that I might be, on dirt, above tree line in the north slope of the range in a month.
Scary to think that I might be, on dirt, above tree line in the north slope in a month.

I have been looking forward to this, but I should have to wait.
 
I was up at Strawberry @7,600' today. Pretty nice out until the wind kicked up. Not much snow around, still a bit of ice on the water.

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gnwatts said:
Correct me if i am wrong, but i believe the glaciers for the most part are left over from the Ice Age, and have been melting at a significant pace, due to man made behavior. They will only start re-forming after humans have stopped warming our planet. This is not a natural occurring "cyclical" issue, that has happened in the past. This is man made, and only we can stop it.
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You're wrong. I'm correcting you. There is no credible (and I emphasize that adjective) evidence that the warming that is happening generally is caused by man's activities. There's also no credible evidence to suggest that we have even reached standard temperature levels associated with the Medieval Warm Period which preceded the Little Ice Age.

Unless you want to suggest that industrialized Vikings driving their SUVs all over the vast grasslands of Greenland was the cause of the Medieval Warm Period, the entire scam of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has no credible evidence at all to support it. Every single climate model that predicted catastrophic warming has turned out to be preposterously wrong, and the core data used to construct the AGW theory was demonstrated as literally fraudulent.

Seriously; why are we talking about this on a hiking forum? The Uintas had a high snow-pack year last year. The Sierras and most of the Rockies had a 200% of average snowpack year 3-4 years ago. You have one mild winter with low snowpack, and the sky is falling?
 
JoshuaDyal said:
Seriously; why are we talking about this on a hiking forum?
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Climate change affects hiking, hence the relevance.

With that said, there is no point in getting in an argument over the merits of climate science or lack thereof here. So how about we not do that.


Nanda said:
@Nick Is that another smaller cuttie the bigger one was devouring?
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Sure is. And when we filleted it up, we found another about the same size inside, along with a tube jig on a big hook! That one had it's tail hanging out of the big ones mouth when we caught it.
 
WasatchWill said:
It's definitely a changing world. Man may have an impact on it now, for better or worse, but this earth has gone through ice ages and global warming periods far before man had any significant impact on its environment. It's not fun to think about what the next few years hold in store if the drought across the west continues like this. At what point do we see a mass migration of people moving back East, where wetter weather and water is a bit more consistent?
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I'm not trying to get anyone riled up and I have no stance or business being in this thread coming from the east coast but I feel this thread wouldn't be complete without George's classic rant on saving the planet. Starts at 1:13.

It's definitely not my personal take, but an interesting and well delivered viewpoint nonetheless.

 
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