Slope/moisture sadness

Topping off a fairly dry and relatively snow-poor winter season, the month of March went unexpectedly cruel on us, sending temperatures down here to over 80 degrees in the second week (it was still winter at that point) and utterly devastating an already anemic snowpack. At this point, SNOTEL has nothing nice to say about the prospects of runoff this spring:



We got shut out of the river lotteries this season - which was probably no big deal, since Sharon couldn't take time for a river trip between planned Cleveland visits and our still-on England trip in the early fall (see below) - but it gnawed at me that I had exactly zero river trips to focus my sights on for the runoff season, however lousy it was likely to be, so I nabbed a May 10 Sand Island launch. At the time, I figured it was way too early (still chafing from the bony scrape that was last year's trip, in an otherwise promising time window), but my current thinking is that this may just be the sweet spot for an early, if inauspicious, runoff from what's left of the Animas.

Sharon still can't go - I've been making noises about doing it myself, which both of us have some reservations about (she especially), but making a token effort to invite a few others. Will post again as the date approaches.