After a month of rain and cloudy skies, we got a couple of warm, sunny days, and then our first snowstorm starting the evening of October 10th. At first it was a cold, freezing rain and then it changed to snow. It snowed all day on Friday, October 11th, but I wasn't optimistic about the possibility of skiing because 1) mentally, I am not ready--I didn't have any of the fall hikes that should precede a ski season and 2) with extremely wet conditions, I figured the snow would just melt into the wetness on the ground.
However, when I woke up Saturday morning to the wonderful bright light that comes with snow on the ground, I couldn't resist heading out with my skis. I told Enrico it would probably be bad and I'd be back in 20 minutes.
As I walked down the street, I could hear a group of crows cawing up a storm in the tree by my neighbor's house. Looking up, I wondered what the commotion was about. Then my eye caught the birds across the river--a group of turkey vultures. Fargo crows vs. Moorhead vultures--snow day battle! I watched these birds flying in the snow--fat white flakes against dark wings. I put on my skis and climbed up the dike, pushing off, I expected slow going with the snow building up on the bottom of my skis, but I actually had a surprisingly nice glide down the other side. I thought,
This might actually turn out to be okay . . .
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| Green leaves, yellow leaves, and white snow--an unnatural combination |
With every stride my spirits lifted. Yes, some of my tracks were one-use only as my skis compressed the snow right down to the wet ground below, but I could kind of glide along all right, and it was glorious to be out in all the bright snow after a very dark several weeks.
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| Guess these tracks can only be used once... |
Although there were still a few strong gusts of wind from the storm, there were also long periods of stillness, with great big flakes floating peacefully (and vertically) to the ground. The strength of this winter storm was evident in the many branches that had fallen to the ground under the weight of snow caught in their still-green leaves (no doubt aided by the strong gusts of wind that accompanied this storm). In some instances, whole trees had fallen.
The ski trail was flooded in some places because the river is so high from our September of rain. This photo shows a part of the trail we normally ski on.
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| Wonder if this will dry up before the real ski season starts? |
I kept to the higher ground and stuck to the grass, when possible. I was feeling pretty good, so I thought I might try to go over to Gooseberry Park, where there is lots of grass to ski on, but the bridge was up because of the flooding.
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| The bridge has been raised due to the flooding of the Red River. |
Instead, I continued into Lindenwood Park. Some kids were sledding, and people were out walking their dogs. One tiny white dog was "fetching" snowballs thrown by his owner. He really, really wanted to bring them back, furiously digging into the snow to retrieve the fallen snowball. Only another thrown snowball would distract him from the task.
I skied around the grassy part of Lindenwood up by the sports fields and found that by skiing just below the leeward side of the dike, I could have lots of snow to ski on because the wind pushed it there.
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| These tracks could be used more than once. |
When I got to the entrance to Lindenwood, I saw another skier about to head out--Peter Arneson, who gave me permission to post this video of him.
He talked about how much he enjoys skiing and apologized for the squeak of his skis--so Fargo of him. I said I didn't mind--all the sounds are part of the music of being out skiing.
A highlight of my ski today was seeing a Peregrine falcon in Ponte Park, diving down through the snowflakes. My breath caught in my throat when I spotted him. I also enjoyed seeing all the leaves with snow on them.
When I got back near our house, I texted Enrico, and he came out with Noko. I skijored with him for a little while, and Enrico took some photos of us. I was out for 2 hours, and now I'm quite tired!
