Going, Going...

We have had quite the wet winter this 2009-2010 season—unusual for Southern Utah! As the weather begins to warm and the last remnants of the white stuff melts away, I wanted to post some ‘before & after’ pictures for posterity (or at least have them someplace other than your dad’s laptop).



Since I haven’t mastered the knack placing labels under pictures, I’ll just have to add some notes under each set of pictures. Here is what it looked like most of the winter: 1) the Franklin’s backyard, 2) our front yard as seen from the driveway and 3) the picnic tables by the overlook.


We had some really wet, sticky snow many times. I’d never seen it stay together like this before! That’s 7 or 8” of snow that folded over on itself without falling apart!


The Meadow (or dry lakebed) up the road from us for some reason always gets more weather than we do here at the park. At the most, there was several feet down there, covering the wooden fence rails in places. More than once this winter, someone has tried to drive down in there only to find it was a bad idea!


I got to go up on Cedar Mountain in the snowcat with your dad again this year. The building in the upper right is a ranger residence at Cedar Breaks National Monument; the machine in the lower portion is one of the snowplows that they use to clear the highway up on the mountain. The evening we were there, he was clearing a fresh wall of snow for some Boy Scouts who were digging snowcaves at the state road shed. From the video, you can see that thing can fling some snow!

Now the snow is nearly gone, at least here at the house.

In the five winters we have been here, we have never seen so much heavy, wet snow that stayed in the trees. These are only a very few of the many trees damaged by the weight and strain of so much snow—sometimes it sucks to be an evergreen!

This is what the Meadow looked like this afternoon as I was coming home from church. With Easter weekend coming up, there is a concern if the Meadow is going to be one muddy quagmire for campers next week. The snow has melted relatively quickly lately, but right now, it is one big mud puddle down there! The BLM rangers are thinking of posting a sign, “Enter at your own risk”!! It could be ugly...

So April will soon be here, followed by summer. I honestly have looked forward to each snowstorm as they came, just for the fun of watching it pile up! Of course, I wasn’t the one who had to shovel the walks all over the campground, so Dad likely has a different opinion…

Here’s to the Winter of 2009-2010—thanks for the memories!!

Mom