Rocky Mountain Snowstorm of '03

Twin Sisters Valley, Colorado, Evening, March 20, 2003. The good news is, our skis did great! (They're new, we only bought them 3 weeks ago, so this was actually in doubt.) The bad news is, we only got about a half mile away from the house. Even after we broke trail and then stomped down on it, Arrow had some trouble, she was working pretty hard. We made our way up the driveway, and down the hill a little bit, and then Hans and Arrow waited while I went up the hill to check on a neighbor, I had talked with her on the phone and she had snow shoes, but no poles. Since I have a spare pair of poles, I decided to deliver them to her so she could at least get out around the house. Glad I had my shovel, 'cause she didn't hear me, and I had to shovel a little snow bank to get up onto her deck. Boy was she surprised to see me! Twin Sisters is still shut, shut, shut, the big equipment won't be here until 2 a.m. tomorrow, and there's a thick fog that's rolled in... (Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image.)

Hans on our new skis!

The truck, from a slightly different angle than you've gotten used to. You can juuuuussssst barely make out the antenna poking up out in the air.

Twin Sisters, at the top of our driveway, looking toward Magnolia. I had heard that another neighbor had broken trail with snow shoes, and sure enough, there it is.

Looking back, down our driveway. That's the barn, straight ahead. That dark thing poking out of the snow in the foreground? It's a 4-foot high 4x4 post with our address on it, that marks the top of the driveway.

Here's what the house looks like. At first, I couldn't figure out what this building was!

The "recycle" shed and woodshed.

Hans and Arrow, on the road.

The house of the neighbor that I checked on. Her driveway is a pretty steep uphill. Coming back down, I was incredibly thankful that Moe, my Nordic ski instructor, thought to teach us how to cut tele-turns on the last day of class, I needed this skill to go back down. (Thanks, Moe! It was loads "moe" fun this way!)

Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig.

Hans and Arrow

Me. This is fun!

Our tracks. The blob on the left is the Subaru.

6:00 p.m. Arrow and Semi are both fed, and content. We've relaxed a bit and had some coffee. And the fog's rolled in on Twin Sisters. Here's what the south meadow looks like, now. It's a real pea-souper out there.


Mary Jo Brodzik <maryjo@mric.net>
Last modified: Sat Mar 22 13:19:01 2003