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Year to Year

By 16 March 2009No Comments

Year to Year

A couple weeks ago the State of California informed farmers the delivery of irrigation water will cease for three weeks in March. Reservoirs are low from the last two months of literally no rain. Drought grips the state again. Much of California’s water comes from snowmelt. Rain the valleys and snow in the mountains over the winter. Neither occurred to any real extent so fat this year.

In the mountains, this drought leaves hard snow. Almost racer chaser snow. Long looping high speed GS to Super G turns become the norm. The “Legendary Powder” of Fernie takes on the mythic characteristics of King Arthur’s Court. Legendary in precisely the same manner.

Last winter was average in total, but instead of scattered big dumps, we received a steady diet of 10 and 20 cm daily deposits. My routine last February–first light I’d open my curtains and look out at my car parked at the curb. If the Thule kayak racks and their blue pads were covered, I was skiing. I’d bang away on the little white box to finish the imminent deadlines and everything else could wait until later in the day. There were a handful of days over the month of February and the first couple of weeks of March that I didn’t hit the hill early. They were a mix of too imminent a deadline and/or having to demonstrate I really cared enough about a project to show up for a 10 or an 11 o’clock meeting.

It was a great winter.

This winter runs as a contrast to the last. From the end of December to the beginning of March we received little snow. A few skiffs ran through town. The most 10cm over night. In Fernie, that’s a dusting.

Now the pattern has changed again. The clouds hide the peaks and snow falls in quarter sized flakes. The snow of right at 0. It slants across the window backlit by the streetlight.

No matter how deep the racks are buried, tomorrow will not be a morning on the hill. I’ll sit writing, watching the snow and wondering how it is, knowing the next day, Tuesday, I’ll be up when I want.