A Walk In The Snow January 2014

My brother came to visit us here at Holden during mid-January. Actually he came here to do some framing in Lodge 3, the dorm for guests that we are remodeling this winter. But we enjoyed the visit aspect too - it had been twenty-five years since he had been up here - which, understandably enough, was how long it has been since we were last here as long term staff. And getting to spend a whole week or nine days with him is a rare treat.
This has been a curious winter for weather. By the time he came here, we had only had thirty inches of snow - and that had compressed to just a few inches or even to bare ground. It looked as if we were not only on track to match the lowest snowfall on record, but set a new low as well.

The Hotel from Main Street Early January 2014

 Here is how the weather played through early winter: the classic weather pattern here is snowfall followed by rising temperatures and sometimes rain- but also often accompanied by clearing skies and a rather warm wind: a chinook, in the jargon of those folk who have lived here longest. The snow would consolidate and compress.
This year we also had a lot of very cold weather, for here at least. I know our friends in the mid-west don't call 10 or 12 below zero (Farenheit) very cold - but for here it is cold. The snow would sublimate - simply disappear in sunlight at those temperatures. Or it would turn to ice - and hard, shiny slick ice at that. Chains or trail crampons on our boots were needed unless one had great balance and reaction time (those under thirty, by observation).
The cold has also affected our power: decreasing the volume of water coming out of Copper Basin, and thereby decreasing power to levels we usually don't see for another two months, toward the end of March. Cold enough, one time to actually freeze the water flowing over the steel grates at the hydroelectric diversion structure and requiring us to fire up the fifty year old diesel generators (at a cost of some $1,000 to $1,500 per day...). Without deep snow to insulate the buildings, we were also using up firewood at an alarming rate. Whereas on a normal winter day we might stoke the furnace three or maybe four times each 24 hours, we needed to stoke six or eight times - and that kept the temperature up to a tropical fifty-five or fifty-six degrees.

Annual Power Graph - Red This Year

But somewhere in the middle of January, the weather got nice: that is to say it snowed, and on the weekend at that. Friday the snow started coming down - kind of sparse at first. By Saturday afternoon it was snowing hard and by Sunday morning we had about sixteen inches of snow. The consistency was somewhere between powder and the customary Cascade Concrete (heavy wet snow). On went the snow shoes, and off we went. 

Looking Up Valley from the Vehicle Bridge
West of the Village

My Brother: View North toward Martins Ridge

Tracks in the Snow on the trail to the Ballpark
(Douglas' Squirrel, I think, a.k.a Chickeree
makes chirrupy little chirps or chip sounds; dark
brown top, orange brown chest and tummy).

The snow has continued to fall, breaking the record for February: one hundred forty some inches. And during the first two days of March, we have had about sixteen inches of snow already. It is beautiful. But the snows of February are deserving of a post of their own.