Hello all,
Is everyone enjoying their spring?
Or, does it feel more like summer there?
Where ever there is…
Summer is slow to arrive in the mountains of the Eastern Front of Montana.
It’s a strange phenomenon, to literally drive back to winter.
No matter where my early spring has ever been spent, it’s always pretty nice by mid-May.
Spring in Missoula is absolute paradise!
There are Brew Fest’s, outdoor music, flip flops, bicycles, sun dresses and just a generally great vibe.
May is by far my favorite month in the Garden City.
My home town of Cincinnati is essentially in summer by then.
Reds games, green lawns, driving with the windows down and road trips to Red River Gorge.
This winter was spent in Northern Wisconsin.
The town of Amery, to be exact.
We had just survived the harshest winter they’ve had in years.
And, it was even starting to green up in the land of PBR and all things dairy!
Winter in the Northwoods was more intense than any I had ever experienced in my life.
We had well over 50 days this winter below zero.
When it dropped way below freezing, my apartment windows would grow beautiful snowflake designs all over them.
Just up the road, Duluth Minnesota broke a record.
23 days below zero in a row!
That is obviously a dubious record that no one was excited about breaking.
The snow on the side of our driveway rose to five feet at its most ridiculous!
It’s not that I’m not used to seeing that much snow, but not in a suburban front yard!
Since working in Antarctica, I now use my phone to keep track of temperatures at the South Pole.
There was a few nights this winter, which were colder than the thermometers at the end of the globe.
Negative 30 degrees before factoring in wind-chill, is a very serious thing to deal with.
Cars hardly start, the seat is hard as a rock and the whole vehicle feels like it’s made of granite.
It’s impressive, in a “trying to kill you” kind of way.
The great thing, is that you Northwoods folks just adapt.
You grin and bear it, and continue on with what has grown to be a normal annual process.
So, when the spring finally broke, I believed it was over for the year.
Surely, an epic winter in Northern Wisconsin ends about the same time as the eastern slope of Glacier Park.
Right?
Not so much…
After more than a month of flip flops, shorts and t-shirts, it was time to return to the park.
I had heard that the winter in Montana was robust.
But, I was not prepared to drive directly back into the thick of it.
It’s like some sort of bizarre seasonal time machine.
Facebook brought me photos of the first plowing of the Two Medicine Road.
A few friends had posted photos of them standing for scale in front of 12ft high vertical walls of snow.
There was snow literally encompassing our entire apartment building.
Conventional plows won’t make a dent in snow this deep.
The park uses large trucks with heavy duty rotary snow blower mounted on the front.
They eat vertical corridors through the packed white.
But, after a while the once vertical walls slump and melt in the sun into something Dr Suess would imagine.
So, I’ve again driven back to winter in my time machine packed full of outdoor gear and groceries.
The gushing waterfalls and a watchful eye proves that it is indeed melting.
It’s tough to see the daily changes, until one day it’s obvious.
Kind of like a watching a child grow or watching an adult age.
Two Medicine Lake is finally starting to melt out, almost giving access to my kayak.
But, the loose chunks keep choking up the outlet giving the impression of an unending supply of sheet ice.
The bighorn sheep climbed down from Scenic Point and ran amuck through the plowed parking lots.
More and more employees and visitors are showing up every day.
Glacier Lillies pop up over night where a foot of snow stood two days previous.
Winter ends slowly here and lingers for much of the calendar.
But, that makes summer that much more spectacular and special.
May you all be primed for a good Summer Solstice party.
And, please wear those flip flops for me.
I’m excited for my second round of spring to hit.
To Life!
