PTSD

Blizzard

Or Post Traumatic Storm Distress.  I began skiing in 1970. I taught it for a dozen years, and attended exams and required workshops always seemingly timed with major storms. I have lived in Denver and Vail, and here in the mountains of north New Mexico for thirty years, 23 in Black Lake. In short I am no stranger to snow.

I have been snowed into Winter park for three days, driven over most of Colorado passes in snow storms without four wheel drive. Stuck in Casper, Wyoming over Halloween in a five day blizzard. Had to spend the night in the lobby of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron, and a Holiday Inn in St. Louis because of surprise snowstorms. No rooms at the Inns. But the snow storm which bothers me is the one when I was home. It began December 29, 2006 and continued into the new year dumping feet of snow from Albuquerque north. It closed all five ways in or out of my valley. The Massive Blizzard, the worst some locals said in 70 years, is still talked about.

It remains the reason why I store water, keep the snowshoes in my entry hall, the snow shovels at each door, the woodshed full, and the pantry well stocked. It was my first knowledge that snow doesn't melt when the storm is over but just eventually wears out like the old timer at a bar in Casper explained that other blizzard in my history. The six feet of snow I got at my house stayed around for months. Like the sand dunes in the Sahara Desert the drifts just changed locations.

The county went to front end loaders to clear roads. Snowplows could not keep up. And the small resort community of Angel Fire was not the county's first concern. The National Guard was called in to air drop bales of hay to the herds of cattle and elk isolated on the high plains without access to food. Meanwhile we dealt with tourists who could not get home and stores which were cut off from their daily deliveries of food and gas. Stores and restaurants facing empty shelves and freezers declined to sell to locals.

 Local contractors who we hired to plow our driveways had to first plow their own. And they could only do that until they ran out of fuel. Plows on the front of pickups were useless because winds packed the snow down like concrete. Some enterprising excavation contractors  shifted to plowing with front end loaders.  There was no construction work for months. Snow shovels and personal snowblowers were useless if you owned one. If you didn't own one there were none for sale.

I have virtually no pictures of this event. The temps were so low and the wind so high I didn't want to go out beyond hauling more firewood inside. And my snowshoes were in the shed at the far end of my property. When the storm stopped our woes were not over. All winter the snow kept drifting around. At one time I could have put boards across the piles of snow on both sides of my driveway and used the space as a garage for my Astro Van. Those glaciers continued into May.

I like my snows more like the photograph below. Picturesque. Predicted. And easy come and easy go. Nothing pretty about blizzards or easy go about winters that follow. The Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 across the great plains from Wyoming through Nebraska and Kansas was totally unexpected. It began on January 12th and paralyzed the area for months.  It has been 13 years Since the New Mexico blizzard of 2006/2007 but I still feel my tummy contract when the first flakes fall. Especially when it is an unexpected snow. Or the wind is blowing. Today's trigger was the phrase patchy winds in NOAA's forecast and the swirling flakes outside by studio door.

The next few days the forecast says snow showers but Colorado has already called in the National guard.