Round Valley Spring

[jfr]

Now that the weather is warmer I was planning to camp up at Round Valley in a few weeks so was looking for recent conditions and water reports.

Sadly, I found this news dated 4/27/2018 on the State Park Facebook page: "The Round Valley water spigot was vandalized last weekend and is lightly flowing under the ground where the pipe was broken off (pack additional water)."

I sure hope it wasn't damaged too badly! What kind of person would do something like this? Maybe I don't want to know the answer.

Anyway, I hope they get it fixed before the weather really warms up.

[hillbasher]

Has there been any update to this? It has been over a month and I was wondering if the broken pipe has been fixed, or if there are even plans to fix it?

[guest]

Hi Hillbasher,
I haven't been there for weeks, but the tram & state park folks are telling hikers to bring All of their water, as we've had no rain, and even if the broken pipe, (don't know about this), gets fixed, there may be no water to pipe.
Ellen made a post here recently about some water sources on the west side of the mountain, but you may have no intention of wandering over there.
The monsoons don't usually hit until July / August, if we get any. You may also know the water at the ranger sta, (below the tram), doesn't taste very good, better to bring from home, or fill at the top tram, (they're recently installed drinking fountains to fill bottles).
regards, ss

[recordalley]

Light flow Saturday

[Perry]

It looked very usable today. Light flow, but usable.

[SEH_Dad]

This was the State Park reply on their Facebook page as of 5/18 when asked about the spigot:
Regarding the spigot, we just checked the well (feeds the spigot) and found the water table inside to be very low. We only received about 17" inches of snow this past winter and with that amount of snowfall and it's sad to say but things are going to dry up quickly. Sorry that's the best answer I can come with. Hope this helps.

[jfr]

I was there over the Memorial Day Weekend and carried an extra gallon of water with me after reading both the facebook page and sanjacjon.com which warmed me of little to no water. But when I was there the spring was flowing slowly but consistently. Here's a photo:


Video here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/_jfr_/27667392777

[rant] I discovered that the so-called vandalism was that someone finally had the courage to detach that annoying hose that was stealing away the water and sending it somewhere far away across the meadow. I had read that the hose was originally part of a project to restore the lower meadow at Round Valley, although I suspect it was installed to supply the CCC workers campsite (they did something similar at Deer Springs and that spring has been dry ever since where it crosses the PCT). Like most such attempts at "redistributing" water, it may have achieved its stated objective, but it also left a mess behind. I'm not sure how far away the Spring Box is from the outflow pipe, but I'll bet it isn't far, and if you do the math, 99.9 percent of the water that used to come out of the pipe sunk right back into the ground (this is all of the water NOT used by hikers, flowing 24/7), where it replenished the local water table and helped to keep the Spring Box full, by preventing the upstream groundwater from flowing away too fast. It's a water table thing, and it's hard to see what's under the ground, but it's an important part of Round Valley's ecosystem. Installing that hose was a bad idea, if you ask me. I hope someone from the CCC removes the rest of the offending hose and hauls it away on one of their mechanical mules. [/rant]

Anyway, this was a low rainfall year, so let's hope that the spring keeps running well into the Summer. Carrying extra water from Long Valley gets old really fast.

[Perry]

It was still running today. Low flow, but it's usable. I filled up a bottle.

Regarding the 17" of snow that the state park mentioned, it makes a big difference whether that's Long Valley or Round Valley. Even though there's only a 700' elevation difference, travelling west results in more precipitation. Also, as anybody who has snowshoed to Wellman's knows, it gets deeper as you go up, and that's likely where the spring water comes from. It could also come from Jean Peak.

[Florian]

Pipe was flowing at 16 gallons per hour Friday morning (6/15).

[Perry]

I was able to fill a bottle today, but it has slowed down to a trickle and is not what it was 2 weeks ago. 2 branches of Willow Creek looked quite usable. Wellman's Cienega had water but is probably only useful to someone with a pump and filter, unless someone is really desperate and doesn't mind a little dirt.