Happy New Year!

some frosty alder catkins to ring in the new year and our improved (colder with snow this time!) winter

comments (4)

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Happy new year, @morpheme!

No snow here, we had our first frost-free December since 1901. Posted 9 years ago
1. morpheme
  
  Lion
  
  We were forecast to have a similar winter to last year - warm, with a fair amount of rain, but so far mother nature has been valiantly defying the NOAA men. We've been getting tons of snow in the mountains. One pass already has more than 17 feet of snow, which is more than 1/2 of what the average has been over the last five years.
  More snow does unfortunately mean more danger... not only do we have record snows, we've already had one avalanche death, one skier still missing and one man killed from falling in a tree well, not to mention many rescues from snowed over trails and roads, all over the last 4 weeks. We've been enjoying the mountain bounty cautiously. In the lowlands we've had mostly rain, but that is quite typical for this time of the year. Lowland snow of any significance is rare. Posted 9 years ago
2. 1. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    Sorry to hear about those accidents. I hope you still enjoy the snow. Does it mean the end of the fungi season for you? Posted 9 years ago
  2. 1. morpheme
      
      Lion
      
      We are having a great time snowshoeing, but are very careful to choose routes that are safe. I'm also going to see if I can take an avalanche awareness class too. I don't really want to know how perform a rescue, but I want to be more aware of how to stay out of avalanche terrain all together.
      As far as fungi goes. If it warms up we may have some more fruitings but for the last few weeks it's been too cold and I think, amazingly, possibly too wet to find much. We had rain almost every day for quite a while. We seem to be drying out a little, but remaining cold for the time being. Posted 9 years ago