We got snow. It was kind of a Costco snowstorm, delivered in wholesale quantities that will last a while. There are no big storms in the forecast, so I guess it was a good thing that we got enough to last. It’s been several years since I remember a storm of that intensity and volume. After three days, we’re still not completely plowed open around my place. Between me and my uncle, we had a combined arsenal of 100 horsepower worth of tractors and eleven feet of snow blower width running pretty much full bore. That moves some snow, but I think at one point it was nearly 30 inches deep, and really tested the limits of both patience and equipment. It was a good old-fashioned shear-pin breaking, truck-swallowing, mailbox-destroying storm.
I have to admit that I enjoyed clearing the snow from this first big storm. The novelty will surely wear off by April, but for now it was kind of fun. I’ve got my new Arctic Extreme coveralls that keep me warm and dry while I’m on the tractor. The snow was a perfect consistency for the snow blower and, with the engine revved up, it was blasting a thick stream of snow about 30 feet. My dog was unimpressed, but my uncle’s border collie thought it was pretty exciting and tried to catch the snow in the air. Every now and then it would get hit with the direct blast out of the blower and get knocked out in the field. Then it would come back for more.
I cut a path down one road and it looked like a trench. It was a perfect cut, exactly the width of the blower and close to 30 inches deep. I discovered that frozen horse manure is about as good as a rock when it comes to jamming up the blower and breaking the shear pin. While fixing that out in the field, I looked around. The scene was stunning. A pair of bald eagles were roosting in a tree beside the road. The snow had stacked up on the power line a few inches high, but no wider than the wire itself. Suddenly it started falling off from one end. The snow peeled off the wire in slow motion across the whole pasture to the next pole, and then from that pole to the next, right up to the barn.
Back on the tractor, the stream of snow from the blower hit a bunch of fully loaded pine trees, and the resulting avalanche covered me and the tractor. I had to stop and clear it off before I could get back to work.
Skiing has been pretty darn good all season, even with the scarcity of real snow. It’s very good now. The powder legs are still there. Santa was bringing me new ski boots, and I decided to celebrate early. The Tuesday morning ski gaggle caught the opening day in McConkey’s Bowl. We had a huge group, and the company was every bit as good as the skiing. It was nice to get a couple of days of powder skiing in before the holiday crowd arrives. It’s hard to believe that Christmas is closing in on us, but it’s more or less here.
I sold the old ski boots on eBay to a guy in Minneapolis. Buying any kind of shoe online is a little tricky, and used ski boots are even tougher. So the process ended up requiring a lot of emails back and forth. They were ostensibly about feet but quickly turned to skiing. The guy buying the boots was curious how I managed to put 300 days on a pair of boots in three seasons. He wasn’t sure he had skied 300 days in his life. The idea of being able to do 100 days a season, without really trying, seemed like a dream to him.
Living here, it’s easy to just get used to the pattern of things, and take for granted the Tuesday ski group, and the Thursday ski group with a big Deer Valley lunch, and the disorganized connecting with friends on the mountain the other days of the week. Sometimes I drive right past where there are several moose gathered around a neighbor’s apple trees, stretching to get the last frozen fruit hanging in the branches. Most of the time I’ll pull over and watch for a few minutes, but not always. Sometimes I’m in a hurry.
This is a good time of year to slow down a bit, and not be in such a hurry. It’s a good time to appreciate good friends, and family, and traditions. Merry Christmas, and thanks for making this such a wonderful place to live.
Tom Clyde served as Park City attorney in the 1980s and is the author of “More Dogs on Main Street.” He has been a columnist at The Park Record for more than 20 years.