February 28, 2009

• OMG! More snow.

  

  This morning, a few hours ago, Koji wanted out.  I got up and moved toward the door.  When I glanced through the little window in the door, I stopped, stunned by the sight of huge snowflakes, falling at a windblown angle across my field of vision, so thickly that I could barely see the trees across the yard.  When I opened the door, some of the snow that had been supported by it fell in onto the floor.

  I hooked the chain to Koji’s collar and turned him loose, then grabbed my camera to record the foot or so of snow that had drifted across the doorway.

  

  Koji did his business, then spent some time frolicking in the falling snow.  I let him back in when he was ready, and for an hour or so I looked out occasionally to see if the snowfall was still as heavy.  When it had slacked off quite a bit, I donned a coat, flipped up the hood, took down the camera and slogged out into the newly fallen snow.

  
  
  
  below: update, a few hours later
  

  Captions explaining each photo above, along with larger versions of the pictures, can be accessed by clicking each image.

  A while later, after noticing that the snow was noticeably deeper, I got back into my outdoor gear, took the camera and slogged a ways up and down the block for some more scenic shots, as opposed to the documentary ones above.  These are not captioned, but you can see bigger versions by clicking.

  
  

  By a cruel irony, Doug had made a lot of progress toward getting enough of the driveway shoveled for us to get the car out.  Now there is not only the remaining portion of the heavy old berm there under the new snow, and more than a foot of new snow over the car and the whole driveway, but by the time he wakes and gets out there to shovel again, if the snowplow has gone by there will be a new berm on top of the old one.

  Just before Doug went to bed, around noon, he carried some stuff out to the compost pile in the backyard.  Snow had drifted thigh-deep into the shoveled path out there.  A north wind is causing the snow to pile up on the south side, in the lee of the trailer, on the porch and in front of the door.  I’m going to do a little bit of shoveling after I post this.  The guys told me to stop shoveling earlier this winter, when I had an episode of angina after an afternoon of light snoveling.  I’m trying to behave myself and not kill myself, so I’ll go slow and easy.  I just don’t want a waist-deep snowdrift avalanching into the living room when the door is opened.

  Speaking of avalanches, in addition to the usual public service announcements about avalanche danger and how to avoid triggering them, the last couple of days a different PSA is being transmitted from the Department of Public Safety.  It is about hypothermia and backcountry safety.  This is almost certainly in response to a recent death nearby, at Hatcher Pass. 

  Two brothers went snowboarding, and became separated.  When one of them found the other, the second one, reportedly “without heavy cold weather gear,” was unable to get back to the road under his own power.  His brother hauled him as far as he could, then went for help.  When the rescue party found him again, he was dead.

  “There is no such thing as bad weather — only inadequate gear.”
  

  • 5:21 pm
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