Grand Enchantment Trail - El Niño

As many of you know, we are going to be hiking the Grand Enchantment Trail this spring. In fact, we are leaving in about three weeks! It looks like it will be a fantastic year to hike it due to our massive winter rains. But this also presents a conundrum. If you look closely at the map above, we cross those lovely purple splotches that represent 180% of average snowfall! So, while we'll be thankful for the water and wildflowers in the desert, we'll be facing significant stretches of snow (the trail reaches nearly 11,000' in five different sections of trail). This illustrates what hikers call the "weather window". The idea is to start early enough in the season to beat the heat in the lower elevations but not to arrive in the mountains before the snow is melted out. Therefore, picking a start date is kind of a gamble. Luckily, our schedule allows us to be flexible. I believe there will be about 3-4 other hikers attempting a thru-hike this spring and all of them are starting before us. Only time will tell who guessed right!