Cabin Journal

Searching for Snow

There’s been so little snow this year that I deliberately seek it out: heading for the cabin when a snowstorm is predicted or hiking up into the highest reaches of Rocky Mountain National Park where I can find layers of deep snow.

Last week, a friend and I snowshoed up to Dream Lake, at an elevation of almost 10,000 feet. Along the trail, the rocks and trees were all smothered in snow. I love being in this all-white landscape, transformed by snow from something brown and plain to something ethereal. To the southeast was the ridge of peaks (above) that culminates in Longs Peak, at 14, 259 feet high, the whole ridge line dusted in white, looking very dreamy.

But this week I arrived at the cabin, at a lower elevation of 8500 feet, to an almost snowless landscape—something I’ve never experienced there in March. When I went for a walk I saw small signs of spring—one willow bush starting to flower (left) and lime-green moss tucked into the protected crevice of a boulder. Magically, it started snowing, flakes tumbling out of the sky, somersaulting through the still air.

 

I had hoped for a huge dumping, because the weather forecast had predicted maybe 8 inches, but when I woke the next morning there was barely 4 inches, hardly enough to bother shoveling off the porches. Still, it renewed the landscape: the trees brushed with snow, Mount Meeker sporting a new white coat, and the light crystal clear, bouncing between the snow and deep blue sky.

I wanted to revel in this rare beauty, so made plans to hike the Glacier Gorge trail in the park, but I arrived to find that yesterday’s snowstorm had not reached this far north. Driving through the lower reaches of the park, the ground was bare and brown until I got to the gorge trailhead. In the past few years, the snow was deep enough to cover the bridges and trail signs, but in this dry year, the trail started out bare, and when I did hit snow, it was old—slushy and icy.

When I looked out across the valley to the peaks of the Never Summer Range, I saw mostly brown hills (above). Still, I appreciated what I had: to the northwest the peaks around Bear Lake were covered in snow, and on the sides of north-facing hills, in the sun’s shadow most of the day, snow was piled up deeply around boulders. Coming back down in the late afternoon, the shadows of the willow bush (left) were delicately etched on the snow-covered creek.

I wish snow covered the whole park, down into the valleys and lower hills. But, in this winter of little snow, I’ll take what I can get.

Shadows and Light, Once Again

In Wild Basin last week, there was barely enough snow to ski on on the road, which is closed to cars in winter. Yet in the woods and on the creek, where the winds can’t as easily blow it away, the snow has piled up.

Sometimes I avoid this trail because it’s dark, and in the winter, especially on cold days, I crave the sun. Alongside the North St. Vrain creek, the conifers are tightly packed in this narrow valley, so little sunlight comes through.

But the snow creates its own light, and the contrast with the darkness all around lends its own brilliance to this trail. The creek itself alternates between light and dark: pools of almost black water emerge from the layers of snow.

In winter the landscape has come down to a few strong elements: the trees, the boulders, the snow, the creek. It’s all shapes and forms and shadows and light.

 

I’m drawn to the ephemeral shadows, which change every minute as the sun moves across the sky. The sunlight casts the stark branches of the trees on the snow and softens them, make them something more ethereal.  And because the light is always changing, I see a different landscape coming back down the road than when I went up. A grouping of boulders and trees or a patch of water on the creek suddenly reveals itself.

 

The landscape has a solemnity to it now, as if I were in church, with the light streaming through the stained glass windows. But the windows here are the needles and branches of the softly swaying pine trees.

When I stop to observe and listen, I hear the water running, not just from the St. Vrain, but from the smaller streams that feed into it. When the creeks are muffled by the snow, it sounds like a heartbeat, as if the creek is the lifeblood of this valley.