Happy 2012 to all of my readers out there! The weather in Jackson has been a far cry from what many were highly anticipating to this point in the winter. After the 700" of snow that fell during last winters "La Nina" pattern, many around here were planning on a much stronger start to this years snowpack, given that we are also in a La Nina pattern for this winter. Although we have received ample snow to get people out skiing, the weather has been unseasonably warm and dry. The snow-water equivalency data is showing anywhere from 60% to 80% of normal in our river drainages right now. It's obviously still very early in the winter to make any predictions, but I would venture to say that we will likely see less snowfall this year than we saw in 2011. Since the last two spring seasons produced record breaking snow and rain, I'd probably hold off booking any fishing trips on the Snake River for this June just yet. Time will tell!
I've posted a few more pictures from from the November New Zealand odyssey. After cutting our teeth around Christchurch and Murchison from the car, Scott and I hit the "rough track"...this is Kiwi for backpacking long and hard to remote areas. We targeted a number of different rivers in remote backcountry areas, carrying backpacks and also staying in huts. If you are short on time and long on money, hiring helicopters can certainly get you to many of these areas. Scott and I opted to haul all of our backpacking gear from the states and make an adventure out of it. There were areas with great trails and easy hiking, as well as spots where we did some serious bushwhacking and crawling over exposed "slips", or spots where earthquakes had caused landslides. New Zealand has a very extensive and well established hut system which makes longer stays much more enjoyable too.
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