Snow Archives - Page 2 of 4

January 3, 2022August 23, 2023

Vinegar Honeydew

Winter is the season of withholdings come free and taboos undone. Those things we tell ourselves which are not for the warm months come to roost, and our allowances to ourselves grow as the season’s light shrinks.

Winter is when we get to have a sit by the fire and exhale from our work like young exhausted parents, listening to the world’s sleep because of our good labor done. It’s when we can crack open our stores and taste the results of our year on this earth from the gardens and fields; the flavors of hope without fear of waste. Vinegar truly is the honeydew of the long nights.

It’s also when we can have freedom in the snow. The snow is that sweeping medium which allows us to climb mountains and then descend at speeds which in any other season would be a cause for concern, even if moderate.

Each mode of winter travel has its partakers and dissuaders, though none is surely the best for all. Cross country, sitski, telemark, downhill, snowbike, snowskate, snowboard, sled, tube, and contractor bag all each have their place for us to slide at speeds too great to pass up. Some have edges for control, some have fewer for fun, yet all allow for wind to blow through your hair and to dance with gravity, more apparent than ever in the cold.

Winter also gives us stories not available elsewhen. Many skilled naturalists have given many good lessons to me on how to read the snows over the years, yet not one lecture can compare to what happens when you go out by yourself and see what the world itself has to say. I’ve spent good hours finding a good track and following it, whether it’s a hare to its burrow, deer to the nearest alfalfa field, or my eyes wandering skywards to see whose wings caught the vole which once did scurry all a tither. The words though melt in the sun, and so the snow is the rarest of books. Perhaps it is also the most precious. Stories carved in stone seem mortibund to those on paper, and so those tattooed upon tree pulp seem to the cuneiform in the nivian ether.

So this winter, do not forget to enjoy the allowances you’ve worked all year: warming your bones by the fire; reading the precious snows; sliding down hills; and vinegar honeydew from your stores.

I’m Patrick Kelly, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:
Images: Courtesy Pixabay, CongerDesign, Photographer https://pixabay.com/photos/cucumbers-pickle-jar-preserves-886036/
Audio: Courtesy & © J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin. https://upr.org
Text: Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://www.logannature.org
Included Links: Patrick Kelly & Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Wild About Utah, Posts by Patrick Kelly

Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon, https://www.logannature.org/

Strand, Holly, Snowshoe Hare, Wild About Utah, February 18, 2010, https://wildaboututah.org/snowshoe-hare/

Larese-Casanova, Mark, The Shape of Wildlife in Winter Wild About Utah, January 26, 2012, https://wildaboututah.org/the-shape-of-wildlife-in-winter/

Larese-Casanova, Mark, Utah’s Rich Skiing History Wild About Utah, January 23, 2014, https://wildaboututah.org/utahs-rich-skiing-history/

Strand, Holly, A Utah Skier’s Snow Lexicon Wild About Utah, January 29, 2009, https://wildaboututah.org/a-utah-skiers-snow-lexicon/

Nummer, Brian, Getting Crisp Home Pickled Vegetables, Extension, Utah State University, https://extension.usu.edu/preserve-the-harvest/research/getting-crisp-home-pickled-vegetables

Food Safety & Preservation, Extension, Utah State University, https://extension.usu.edu/saltlake/home-family-food/food-safety-preservation

January 4, 2021March 12, 2022

The Sun Still Shines in the Snowfall

The fresh morning snow teaches me things I didn’t know, and reminds me of that which I had forgotten after a long year living once more with dark, firm soil.

This year’s fresh snow has taught me that two deer are regulars in my driveway, browsing on the wilting greenery which bends beneath the subtle weight of Utah snow, and stripping bark off of a scraggly bough, exposing the green and peach inner flesh. Their hooves leave an imprint which mirrors two thumbs pressed together. They have a story. Which neighbor’s yard did they come in from, and into whose they trekked back. That they walk side by side, the smaller towards the easiest escape down the driveway, just in case. That they don’t linger too long.

I have learned that a stray cat prowls the same tracks as the deer, perhaps looking for the voles who are yet to find purchase beneath the nivean earth. It descends from a cedar fence onto the ground, sticks to gliding silently by the unnatural straight angles of buildings and fences, until it finally makes a direct charge for a nearby hedge littered underneath with duff and good hunting. I wonder if it’s the one from the missing posters stapled to posts by all the town stop signs.

Small birds hop beneath one of my feeders even by night. Winter is not the time to play by strict diurnal rules. They tidy up after their dayshift ilk, stripping seed from sunflower husk, and banking ball bearing millet under the cover of darkness. Perhaps that cat watches. Perhaps the birds watch back.

The snow is the perfect communicator. It does have the pitfall of many, who talk a lot, say very little, and do even less. It instead has rare idle chatter, lets its messages be silently heard by those who know how to listen to the indentations upon the void, and itself creates a strange world which, for just a few months, finds magic in the authority of its mirk. The world of nivean wonders is that of a temporary rebirth, a do-over, where the millennia of soils are lost to the fickle weather of the night, where our snow forts are washed away by the rising tide of the Utah sun, and which strips leaves from trees, leaving them bare as if still blissfully in Eden. All is renewed by the ablution of the snow.

Its power comes from its ability to rejuvenate our dreams as well. In winter, my mornings start slower and evenings burn the dim orange oil of cozy comfort. I learn to be less restless, to relearn stationary arts, to affirm the joy of simple chores done quickly in the shattering cold.

This winter, remember, too, that the sun still shines in the snowfall. Remember that the world still rolls forward even as we sleep. Remember to continue to learn, even from those things which seem as ephemeral and fickle as the morning’s fresh snow. What will you find upon this seasonal canvas framed in time and stretched by silence?

I’m Patrick Kelly, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Credits:

Images: Image Courtesy Pixabay, Jörg Vieli(Sonyuser), Photographer
Audio: Contains audio Courtesy & Copyright J. Chase and K.W. Baldwin, Technical engineers, Utah Public Radio
Text: Patrick Kelly, Director of Education, Stokes Nature Center, https://logannature.org/
Included Links: Lyle Bingham, Webmaster, WildAboutUtah.org

Additional Reading

Greene, Jack, I Love Snow, Wild About Utah, November 16, 2020, https://wildaboututah.org/wildlife-winter-climate-change/

Greene, Jack, Wildlife In Winter & Climate Change, Wild About Utah, January 15, 2018, https://wildaboututah.org/wildlife-winter-climate-change/

Larese-Casanova, Mark, The Shape of Wildlife in Winter, Wild About Utah, January 26, 2012, https://wildaboututah.org/the-shape-of-wildlife-in-winter/

February 17, 2020July 17, 2020

Snowshoes and Adaptations

“No, no, no!”

“Don’t try to help me up yet,” I instructed, choking back laughter through a face full of snow.

Third graders teetered in their snowshoes on the edge of the tree well with mixed emotions written on their faces—equal parts concern and confusion. I was sunk to my armpits in snow, insisting that they not help me out of it. The learning had begun.

Snowshoes and Adaptations: Stomping a flat, hard-pack clearing into the deep snow Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer — Stomping a flat, hard-pack clearing into the deep snow
Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer

We were in the trees, high in the canyon, there to discuss the winter adaptations of local wildlife while an inch an hour of fresh powder fell from above. I had stepped onto a shallow layer of snow that covered a spruce sapling just as I was explaining the similarities between the snowshoes on our boots and the feet of the snowshoe hare. The timing was impeccable.

“I guess we’re not as good as the snowshoe hare,” one student quipped as a flurry of helpful hands and a borrowed ski pole finally freed me from the hole.

Stomping a flat, hard-pack clearing into the deep snow Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer — Stomping a flat, hard-pack clearing into the deep snow
Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer

“No, I guess not,” was my reply. “So how do we survive here, then?”
Snow continued to fall while students offered up their hypotheses: “We have tools, like coats and snowshoes and ski poles”; “we help each other, like a community!” “We don’t have special body parts, so we have to try new things to survive.”

Someone mentioned “structural adaptations.” A familiar murmur of agreement as someone used another science term, “behavioral adaptations,” language maybe once thought too complex for 9-year-olds. But it was language students had developed over the course of a few months closely studying the wildlife of Utah—language they were putting to work now, constructing new understandings of the world in real time.

Enjoying the Snow, Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer — Enjoying the Snow,
Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer

We needed to keep moving, so my colleague and co-wilderness-guide for the day introduced the kids to another behavioral adaptation used by herds of deer. Minutes later, 13 energetic bodies were performing the mule deer “snow dance,” stomping a flat, hard-pack clearing into the deep snow. “No more post-holing,” he told the kids. He let the new vocabulary word sink in while we rested and ate a snack, much like a mule deer might.

As a matter of state law, the Utah State Board of Education expects third graders to, quote, “Engage in argument from evidence that in a particular habitat…some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all” (UT SEEd Standards, 3.2.5, 2019).

Our Class The Joy of Teaching Outdoors Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer — Our Class
The Joy of Teaching Outdoors
Courtesy & Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer

Learning outdoors helps students connect academic content to lived experiences in real time. These students certainly had an argument to make as to how well-prepared an animal needs to be in order to survive a mountain winter. They lived the experiences themselves.

I’m Josh Boling, and I’m Wild About Utah.

Snowshoes and Adaptations-Credits:
Snowshoes and Adaptations
Photos: Courtesy and Copyright Josh Boling, Photographer
Audio: Includes audio from Josh Boling
Text: Josh Boling, 2020,

Snowshoes and Adaptations-Additional Reading

Boling, Josh, Why I Teach Outside, Wild About Utah, November 11, 2019, https://wildaboututah.org/why-i-teach-outside/

Strand, Holly, Shoeshoe Hare, Wild About Utah, November 18, 2010, https://wildaboututah.org/snowshoe-hare/

October 26, 2015January 24, 2021

Best Snow

Click to view larger image of a skier at Brian Head, Photo Courtesy USDA Forest Service — Skier at Brian Head
Photo Courtesy USDA Forest Service

As the mountains begin to take on hues of scarlet, gold and russet, many Utahns might be looking eagerly toward the coming months when those slopes will be blanketed in white. The Utah ski industry nurtures a whopping annual income of about $800 million dollars. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the state claims to have the “greatest snow on earth.” In fact, the state of Utah managed to make their slogan a federal trademark in 1995 after winning a lawsuit brought by the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus group, who felt the catchy marketing phrase might be confused with their slogan, the Greatest Show on Earth.

The trademark must have worked, because Utah draws so many visitors to its slopes, it racks up about 4 million skier days annually. But disregard plenty of evidence that we do indeed draw a crowd, and the statement is pretty subjective. So what’s the science behind our legendary powder?

The ideal condition skiers hope for is a deep, fluffy snow that creates the illusion of bottomless powder. And finding it is a bit like the Goldilocks story. Too wet, and you bog down. Too dry, and there’s not enough body to create a floating sensation beneath the ski. If the terrain is too steep, the powder won’t stick. And if it’s not steep enough, you can’t build sufficient momentum to glide over the top.

To get to the bottom of why Utah’s snow is just right, we actually have to look even further westward, toward the slow warm waters of the North Pacific current. As water laden clouds move inland, snow first falls over the Cascades in the north and the Sierra Nevadas further south, with an average moisture content of 12%. Even in areas like Washington’s Mt. Baker, where annual snowfall comes in greater quantities than Utah, the moister maritime snow creates a heavy base that bogs down skis. By the time these winter storms cross the Great Basin and reach the skiers’ Mecca of Alta and the Wasatch Range, the moisture content will have decreased to about 8.5%. And that seems to be the sweet spot. The moisture content of Utah’s intermountain snow is just enough that powder from our first storms settles into a soft but voluminous base. As winter progresses, fresh snow falls in a cold and mostly arid environment, forming very fine, symmetrical crystals called dendrites. The microscopic structure of dendrites allows them to accumulate in well ventilated, incompact drifts, much like the puffy down in your favorite pillow or ski jacket.

And perfect powder isn’t the only advantage Utah’s ski resorts have over their neighbors. Our mountainous topography, with its wealth of winding canyons, means we have an abundance of slopes well protected from strong winds which could compact or carry away fresh snowfall. And while so many cold and overcast days might get you down, it also protects our top powder from radiation and air mass effect, which can create a crust along the surface. And that means our freshly fallen powder sticks around for longer.

So consider that Utah offers 26,000 acres of mountain, blanketed in more than 500 annual inches of perfect intermountain snow, and it’s no wonder we enjoy 5 times the number of “powder days” as our neighbors. “The Greatest Snow on Earth” starts sounding a lot less subjective, and more like truth. In fact, you just might be tempted to make like Goldilocks and make yourself at home.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Ru Mahoney.

Credits:
Image: Courtesy USDA Forest Service, fs.usda.gov
Text: Ru Mahoney, Stokes Nature Center in Logan Canyon.

Additional Reading: