Got back yesterday (5/7/13) from spending Sunday to Tuesday up in the Eastern Sierra.
Had to abort the plan for University, as heavy cloud cover, fog, and eventually snow basically took hold of the entire region from south of Whitney, stretching clear up to Bishop. (Possibly farther, but that's as far north as I travelled).
Sunday arrived in Onion Valley to mostly clear skies. At night the temp dipped down to probably high teens. Woke up Monday morning to quick-moving clouds/fog and much cooler weather. Also saw thunderstorms were probably supposed to move in on Tuesday, which was our planned day to come back over Kearsage Pass after spending the night over at the Kearsage Lakes.
Seeing the weather starting to deteriorate, we decided to at least try for Mt. Gould and Kearsage Pass. Pretty steady weather on the way, with just a few flakes here and there. Made it to Kearsage Pass just after noon and found this...
Up until this point, all lakes were ice free on the route up, with the exception of Heart and the final lake right below Kearsage Pass (on the final two just the rims were showing water). Gilbert and the other lower lakes were ice free.
My buddy and I were debating about Mt. Gould, when it basically disappeared before our eyes, the wind jacked up, and it started to snow in earnest. Apparently we had been just ahead of the weather all day and it had finally caught up with us. The entire way back to Onion Valley it snowed, and by the time we got back to the campground, snow was already piling up on my car. (It was just barely starting to stick to the ground at this point, around 3:00pm). We decided to call it a day and head down to the valley, not wanting to chance getting snowed in.
More or less the heavy cloud cover persisted into Tuesday and didn't appear to be going anywhere. We headed up towards Horseshoe Meadows and hit snow around 9000 feet. We also headed up to the Portal and had somewhat heavier snow at the trailhead. Later on Tuesday I took this pick from Manzanar....
From looking at the picture, it just seemed the whole East Side was just blanketed. Every once in awhile it would slightly clear and you'd get a glimpse of the snow level. My guess is most spots it was between 7 and 8000 feet. Of all the areas, it seems like above Independence, towards Onion Valley, seemed to be getting socked with the darkest clouds.
Can't be sure on total snow accumulation, but my guess is a lot of the trails that were clear before Sunday probably have at least a couple of inches on them now...
Gusto