Oregon Public Broadcasting

People hoping to camp over the holiday weekend in the Cascades might consider taking snowshoes or skis along.  As Pete Springer reports, a record snowpack means many higher elevation campgrounds still have several feet of snow.

If you headed to the mountains to camp over Memorial Day, you probably ran into snow.

More than a month later and with another holiday weekend upon us, the situation hasn’t changed too much.

Snow is still lingering in the Cascades -- keeping many campgrounds closed until perhaps mid-July.

Roger Peterson is with the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest in southwest Washington.  He says it’s uncommon to have so much snow this late in the season at so many campgrounds.

Roger Peterson: “Most of the time those campgrounds are open by July 4th but this year, just because of the snowpack we did get and -- we were -- it may be warm now but we were still getting snow in the Cascades here less than a month ago.”

Peterson says forest visitors should be prepared for snow at around 3500 feet.

Many campgrounds above 4000 feet still have several feet of snow and remain inaccessible by car.