Spring, Summer, and Life in the Mountains

Okay, quick. What do you get when have a winter that drops twice as much snow in the mountains as usual, followed by a wet spring, and then sudden increases in temperature when it finally does turn nice? Well, around here where we live, you get a number of things.

First, you get a nice green lawn. Usually, once spring rolls around, we don't get a great deal of moisture, so the lawn will grow for a while, but usually by the end of May, it doesn't need to be mowed on a weekly basis (or even more frequently!). But with the unique combination I mentioned above, it means pulling out the mower to cut the grass that grew at least 4 inches in a week, and doing that week after week after week.

What else does it mean? Well, it means that you get a lot more water running down out of the mountains than usual. As the snow melts, it makes its way down to the lower levels of the valleys. The rivers around here are used to about an average amount of snow. When twice as much snow, combined with extra rain happens, you get, yes, floods.

One of the roads about 3/4 of a mile from our house has now been flooded for about a month. The water in places is about 6 inches over the roadway, and steadily running across the surface. It's been blocked off, so no traffic can head down that way, but that has also led to a bit of re-routing around our neighborhood. When you throw in some road construction on the major road as well, it turns into a regular traffic nightmare.

One good thing that you get from the extra snow and rain, however, is a filling of the reservoirs around here. Many of them had been at about 70% capacity the last few years. This year, they are actually having to let water run out of them now to make sure that they don't overflow when the water starts to really flow out of the mountains. So one good thing is a surplus of water.

Yes, for some of you reading this, you may be wondering why the snow hasn't all melted already. Just a couple of weeks ago, at one of the local fun spots, there was still about 100 inches of snow (in mid-May!!!). Elevation, cooler temperatures, and just an abundance of snow means that we will either have a late melting point this year, or it will all decide to melt in a short time. If it goes for the second of those two options, you might just find us floating on an ark around here!