Useful Weather Sites

By -
Snow along the Alpine trail near Oakridge, Oregon
Winter is nearly here and that makes heading out into the wilderness slightly more dangerous than the rest of the year. The key to having a safe and awesome time, is being prepared for what weather you may face. I always like to plan for the worst, which often leads to slightly heavier pack weight. There are a lot of weather related sites around and some of them are better than others. My favorite general weather site is the National Weather Service.

Their site is easy to navigate, one can search by zip code or city. Also there is a map that you can click around on and find the area closest to your destination. One of the best features is that are no ads. So once you figure out that it your destination might have some snow I always check out the National Water and Climate Center's website, known as SNOTEL. 

The NRCS offers information about how they collect data and what it all means. I normally just click on my state and then the SNOTEL site closest to where my destination will be. There is a lot of useful information on their site it has saved me from camping past the snow line a few times. The next place I check before leaving is the Oregon Department of Transportation's website, Trip Check.

Trip Check offers you several cameras around Oregon that show mostly up to date still photos of major highways. Also they offer great information about construction and obstruction delays, such as wrecks and land slides. It's updated really often so check it a frequently because we all know how quickly conditions can change!

These are my three go to sites for checking the weather at my hiking or camping destination. Always be prepared, if you have any other sites you prefer please post them below, I love checking out new sites.








Location: Eugene, OR, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

McQuade Creek Trail: Spring Gateway to the Middle Santiam Wilderness

By -
Image
The Middle Santiam Wilderness is an incredible place. Massive Douglas-fir, western hemlock and western redcedar line much of McQuade Creek Trail and the Chimney Peak Trail. After calling the Sweet Home Ranger Station and finding out that the trail head on the south side of the Wilderness would likely be closed until July, because of snow, I decided to find another route in. The lady I was talking with was pretty knowledgeable and let me know that Forest Road( FR) 1142 was open, but a massive rock blocked the road one mile from the trail head. That wasn't much of a deterrent an extra two miles round trip wouldn't hurt.   The rock blocking FR 1142 The McQuade Creek Trail starts out with 2 fairly rapid creek crossings, both of them being about calf high on me( I'm about 5'6) as of June 2, 2012. The trail then begins to slowly climb through a relatively recent clear-cut, which gives you a pretty awesome view of the valley below. As you climb you wil
Read more

Santiam Wagon Road: Mountain House to House Rock Falls

By -
Image
Normally I'm somewhat apprehensive about hiking on old roads, especially ones that run parallel to a modern road. But I also love to hike any longer trails in the area. The full length of the trail portion of the Santiam Wagon Road is approximately 21 miles, running from Fish Lake to Mountain House. Some of the trail is still on drivable road, but thankfully much of it is only open to non-motorized transportation. Bridge across the South Santiam River South Santiam River  The hike starts out at a small pull out next to a gated bridge across the South Santiam River. The trailhead would hold about 5 cars, but I wouldn't expect to see many other people. Shortly after you cross the bridge you enter into an almost pure stand of Red Alder. I'm not sure what kind of disturbance caused this early successional forest, but it's beautiful.  Dense Red alder (Alnus rubra) line the trail Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) and Red alder (Alnus rubra) leaves c
Read more

Make a Homemade Planter Box For Under $30

By -
Image
When you live in a second floor walk-up there are certain things you sacrifice. When we moved in I realized that there was no way I would be able to seed the cement back patio and have a luscious patch of green to call my own. I have accepted this and moved on. Presently I tell myself that at least this way there is no lawn that needs to be mowed. I have come to terms with not having grass to roll around in and I am alright with it. For now. One thing that I wasn't willing to sacrifice, regardless of our second floor status, was a garden. A few months ago John and I made several shopping trips. I had it in my head that I was going to buy some long, and narrow in proportion planter boxes to line our patio. Did I want square ones? No. Did I want small little rectangles that looked like elongated loaf pans to grow plants in? No. I wanted substantial 18 inch wide, 6 foot long planter boxes. We went to 4 or 5 different stores ranging from one stop shops, to hardware stores, we even pe
Read more