#sierra-nevada

#sierra-nevada

Getting struck and killed by lightning was a real possibility since we were the highest thing around for miles and lightning was striking all around us. To reach safer ground, they decided to abandon their plan of taking a trail back. Instead, using their ice axes, they climbed down the face of the mountain through steep and icy snow chutes.

SWE is the most important metric for all of our water resources. It's the metric that we deal with the most and the one that the entirety of the snow research and operations community is working to get right. So, seeing an increase in SWE like that, even if it's from mid-winter rain, is a great thing because that means we have more water stored in the snowpack moving forward.

Hop on a plane to Malaga, and you might expect to see passengers in flip-flops and sun hats, ready to spend a week on a lounger with a cocktail to hand. But in recent years, a different kind of traveller has set their sights on the Costa del Sol. Instead of staying by the sea, they head inland, to cycle the mountains of Sierra Nevada.

This quaint little town, surrounded by green pastures and granite cliffs, is the northern gateway to the High Sierra. Bridgeport always evokes nostalgia and is one of my favorite views of the Eastern Sierra. In my younger years, it was all about the resorts, and Bridgeport was a place to stretch the legs on the way to Mammoth Mountain. Now, I look more to the backcountry trailheads, and Bridgeport has become an alluring area along the 395 corridor.

The Guest Cabin at Wondernut Farm, Big Oak Flat Wondernut Farm's quaint one-room cabin (Courtesy of Nic Castellanos via Hipcamp) Overlooking the property owners' 115-year-old barn and garden, the guest cabin at Wondernut Farm is, perhaps, the perfect minimalist retreat for those seeking a bit of respite from our electronic devices. Glampers who choose to spend an evening or more underneath the tin steel roofed cabin can expect a cacophony of chorused musings to help wake them up everyday.

Out of the 42 relatively common bird species in the study - including the mountain quail, green-tailed towhee, fox sparrow and lazuli bunting - each responded to fires a bit differently over time. For 11 species, population density increased and remained higher in the burned areas, with little or no signals of slowing down, even 35 years after a fire. For nine species, these benefits lasted longer than 20 years. For the rest, the benefits lasted less than two decades, or they showed little response at

Nestled at the base of the soaring Sierra Nevada mountains, the small town of Bishop, California, has autumn views that rival leaf-peeping destinations the world over. This rugged little mountain town is located in Owens Valley on Highway 395, near landmark destinations such as Death Valley National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Mount Whitney (the tallest point in the contiguous United States).

A yellow hose runs past the foot of giant sequoias in the Sierra National Forest, and sprinklers drench the forest floor. Those sprinklers are among the last line of defense installed by firefighters to protect giant sequoias in the McKinley Grove from flames, as thunderstorms continue to drive growth on the 29,718-acre Garnet Fire burning in the Sierra Nevada. "The fire is roughly three miles southeast of the grove's southern edge," said Joe Zwierzchowski, the public information officer assigned to the Garnet Fire, in an email to SFGATE on Tuesday afternoon.