About NoGo Sierra

NoGo Sierra is a real-time outdoor condition forecasting tool built for the Sierra Nevada. It pulls together weather, crowding, fire, avalanche, air quality, and trail data into a single score for every trailhead, lake, resort, campground, and peak across the range — so you can pick the right place at the right time, not just the most popular one.

Why we built it

The Sierra Nevada draws millions of visitors every year, but the information most people use to plan trips — Instagram posts, generic weather apps, and word of mouth — is scattered, out of date, or completely missing for the majority of the range.

Popular destinations end up overcrowded while equally beautiful locations an hour away sit empty. NoGo Sierra is designed to change that by making real-time condition data accessible for the whole range, not just the top 20 spots.

Data sources

WeatherOpen-Meteo 7-day hourly forecasts across 345 grid cells
AvalancheNWAC & CAIC zone-level danger ratings, updated daily
Air QualityEPA AQS / AirNow real-time AQI readings
FireNIFC active fire perimeters within 50 miles
TrafficGoogle Routes API drive-time proxies for ~220 locations
TrailsRecreation.gov facility open / closed status
CrowdingLive presence pings, BestTime historical patterns, synthetic scoring

Coverage

The map currently covers 3,188 locations across six corridors: North Sierra, Tahoe, Yosemite, Mammoth, Eastern Sierra, and Kings / Sequoia. Scores are refreshed multiple times per day using a cloud pipeline that runs automated ingestion and processing across all locations simultaneously.