I don’t mind admitting that I haven’t entirely lost my childlike excitement over seeing it snow. In Dallas, we rarely had much accumulation of the real thing. More often there were ice storms, but either that or the occasional real snow would bring on multiple closures of schools and businesses, fun—except for those who still had to work—and the joy of a rare and special occurrence. And a rash of car accidents, usually caused by people who didn’t understand that having four-wheel drive only means that all four wheels will be spinning when you’re going too fast on the icy streets.
Here at 9,200 ft, we get a lot of snow, by my standards, and it stays for months. We’ve learned to pay close attention to weather forecasts in case a coming storm might necessitate a grocery run, allowing us to get through whatever amount of time it might take to plow us out. The snow shoveling that follows such events has certainly tempered my enthusiasm somewhat, giving me reason to enjoy its departure as well as its arrival. But you know that scene in the movie Forrest Gump where he’s in Vietnam and he talks about the rain? He describes its various forms – I’m barely paraphrasing here but I’ll use quotes anyway—as “big fat rain, little stinging rain, rain that comes in sideways…it even rains at night.” I suppose this shouldn’t have come as a shock to me, since snow is just refrigerated rain, but snow comes in just as many configurations. My current favorite is when it comes in big fat flakes that drift down like feathers. Sometimes it’s tiny snowballs that look like the stuffing from some toy creature. Or it can come in fierce, blowing blizzards that engulf us in cloud and cold. And yes, it also snows at night.
I’ve also learned that snow has almost as many characteristics when it’s on the ground. My least favorite of these is the hard and crusty layer that can suddenly give way and drop one or both of your legs several inches—or feet—into the soft, powdery stuff that’s as slippery as sand. Snowshoeing in either, I have learned, is the surest way to be hot and cold at the same time.
The other fun thing about snow is it gives you a hint about who or what might have visited lately. Identifying the various tracks that appear on fresh snowfall can give you yet another reason to enjoy the amazing resource that the internet can be, as well as appreciating the aptitude of those creatures who survive, winter after winter. And I’m not even going to claim that my bird feeder has anything to do with it.