By Cari Spencer From Los Angeles Times Los Angeles—It’s weather whiplash in the Eastern Sierra. While much of the Southwestern U.S. endures sweltering heat that continues to topple daily records, historic snowfall has brought an unusually extended ski season to Mammoth Mountain, where snowboarders and skiers continue to soar down the slopes in shorts and…

By Laylan Connelly From The Orange County Register California might be known for its sun-kissed beaches, but snowboarding and skiing in summer months—that’s a Golden State treat to put on the bucket list this year. Summer has had a slow start where I live in Southern California, with overcast gray skies day after day plaguing…

Marek Warszawski The Sacramento Bee Sacramento—It’s easy to become blasé about Yosemite Valley. Even a touch jaded. Especially when you live within easy driving distance and have visited countless times and in all seasons. Factor in the crowds and the hoops one must be willing to jump through in order to spend the day marveling…

By John Meyer From The Denver Post Denver—With Colorado’s snowpack ranging from ample to exceptional this spring, hikers who adore wildflowers may already be envisioning days of strolling along lush landscapes of spectacular blooms under columbine-blue skies when all that snow melts. It could well happen this summer. But because several factors affect the quality…

By Ethan Baron From Bay Area News Group Emily and Jeremy Cross from Scotts Valley are planning to travel with their two boys to a family reunion in July at a Sierra Nevada campground. But a big, frozen question hangs over the trip: Will California’s near-record snowpack melt in time? “We’re just going to keep…

By Lisa M. Krieger From Bay Area News Group Buck Meadows—For 170 years, the gold deposits along Sierra stream beds have been so poked and prodded that easy supplies of the precious metal have grown scarce and are a challenge to find. This spring’s raging rivers are regifting them. “There it is!” said Kevin Bell…

By Ethan Baron From The Mercury News Popular State Parks campgrounds in the Lake Tahoe region will not open in time for Memorial Day as they recover from lingering snow and damage from the winter’s near-record snowpack. Campgrounds at Ed Z’berg Sugar Pine Point State Park along the southwest side of the lake, Tahoe State…

Gold isn’t raining from the sky in the Golden State, but it might be flooding into the rivers by summer. “Nugget Nick” Prebalick expects the record snowpack in northern California to deposit even more gold in Woods Creek in Tuolumne County, where he shares a claim with his father and son near Jamestown. The family has…

By Jack Dolan From Los Angeles Times Imagine racing down a steep river of recently melted snow toward a roaring rapid. You’re sitting on the outside edge of an inflatable raft with a paddle in your hands, so you can’t hold onto anything else. All that’s keeping you in the boat—and out of the freezing…

By Paul Rogers From The Mercury News San Jose—The massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevada this year has transformed California’s most famous park, Yosemite. And the impacts are likely to last all summer, and perhaps even longer. The park’s world-famous waterfalls are thundering now as billions of gallons of melted snow cascade 1,000 feet or…