TIL north-facing trails in the Cascades melt out a full month later, found this after 3 wrong trips
I checked snow depth maps for the first time and realized my May hikes were all on north slopes, no wonder I was postholing while others had clear paths. Anyone else use aspect as a deciding factor before picking a route, or just wing it like I used to?
Winged it for years and honestly I still mostly do, because aspect only gets you so far once you're a few thousand feet up and the trees change everything. Snow depth maps are great but they're often a week or two old, so a freak warm spell can flip a north slope to slush while a shaded gully stays icy. Check the map, sure, but trust your boots on the trail more than any layer on a screen.