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Early Snow

Early Snow

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In the mountains where we hiked two months ago, snow has been falling. The San Juan peaks are now white-capped. Ski season opens tomorrow in some locales.

Here, leaves are just starting to turn, but in Colorado, winter has arrived. Wolf Creek Pass, pictured above in mid-August, may receive 40 inches of snow from the storm that’s still pummeling the southwest part of the state.

It’s the flip-side of all that mountain beauty. The high altitudes are the first to catch the white stuff. If I lived there, I’d have to adjust. Take up skiing, at least the cross-county kind.

Instead, I’m here in this green-and-orange cocoon, trying to imagine these peaks in winter white.

First Chill

First Chill

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I don’t feel it as much in the morning. Warmed from sleep and wearing a fuzzy robe, I make my way to this room, this keyboard. Momentum moves me into the day.

But an hour or so later, it hits me. The air in here feels mighty chilly. I check the indoor thermostat: 66. And that’s downstairs. Upstairs is usually (strangely) cooler.

What is it about these first cool days of fall? They come on the heels of warmth and humidity. They suffer in comparison.

I try to wait until November to turn on the furnace, but today’s high will only be 58 degrees. Time for this rite of passage, even if it’s a couple weeks early. Time to combat the first chill.

A Day Without Rain

A Day Without Rain

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Yesterday, for the first time in days, we woke up to clear skies. I took a long walk then squeegeed off the glass-topped table on the deck, making a dry spot for alfresco research and writing. By late afternoon I was restless again, ready for another stroll. 

Such are the choices that await us on a day without rain, choices we haven’t had for the last week or so. Not that I’m complaining, given what residents of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas have been enduring. But a day without rain made me appreciate the sunny weather that is so often our lot. Plus, I can tolerate today’s dampness all the more after yesterday’s solar recharging. 

Today’s drippy cloudiness puts me in a reflective mood. This is the penultimate post I’ll write on this platform. On Tuesday, October 1, A Walker in the Suburbs moves to its new home. Stay tuned for more on this, including a link.

(Rainclouds in Canyonlands National Park)

Fluid Again

Fluid Again

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The long-sought precipitation arrived during the night, and I awoke to the pleasant sound of a steady rain. This morning, after an early appointment, I ventured out into the storm, which had dwindled to drips and mist by the time I started walking.

What struck me most was how the dust was tamped down. The woods were refreshed after weeks of parching, and I was energized by the damp greenery and water gurgling over rocks. 

Weeks of drought slowed movement. Now, with the moisture, the landscape was fluid again. 

 

Still Dry

Still Dry

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Here, trails are caked dirt, easily scuffed, and streams are dry, rocky ditches. Leaves are dropping early, tired and brown.

The drought is even more pronounced in West Virginia, which we drove through a few weeks ago. It looked like autumn at the beginning of September.

In my part of Virginia, weather gurus call it “abnormally dry,” but that’s just one step away from full-fledged drought.

Help is on the way, they say, but not as much rain as was originally forecast. Looks the ferns will continue to wilt.

One Day or Many?

One Day or Many?

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Here in northern Virginia, weeks of swelter have been replaced by cool nights, warm sun and low-humidity air. 

I feel like I’m in Colorado again, where you dress in layers that can be peeled off or piled on as the day’s warmth waxes and wanes. 

It’s an interesting way to live, temperature differences of 30 degrees or more in a single day. Does one get used to it over time, or does one day feel like many?

Flash Flood

Flash Flood

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Back home now, remembering our adventures, one of which was a little too close for comfort.

It was Friday evening and we had just returned from a day of hiking and sightseeing in Canyonlands when our cell phones began to blare with warning messages of flash floods. Scary, yes, but hardly cause for concern, we thought, tucked away in our motel on Main Street in Moab. 

What hubris! We had only gone across the street to dinner, but decided to browse in a bookstore on the way home. Not just any bookstore, by the way. Back of Beyond was started by friends of the writer Edward Abby shortly after his death in 1989. Its selection of environmental and place titles was phenomenal, and I was absorbed, as I usually am in the presence of great books.  

In retrospect, we should have been alarmed by the sandbags we stepped over to enter the store; we assumed they were just a precaution. But no more than 15 minutes after I snapped the rainbow photo above, I looked out the bookstore window to find that Main Street had vanished — with a river of brown water flowing in its place. 

So much precipitation fell so quickly that creeks overflowed their banks and water poured off the mountains that surround the town. We couldn’t exit the front door of the store, but a helpful clerk let us out the back, where we walked several feet before finding that the side street we’d hoped to cross was just as flooded as Main Street. 

We searched for other routes back to our hotel, which we could see but couldn’t figure out how to reach. By then it was pouring again, and we had lightning to worry about as well as the swirling stream. It wouldn’t be pleasant to wade across, but we had no other choice. 

We took a deep breath and plunged into the water, which came halfway up to my knees. It was murky and brown, cold and deep. The current was brisk. Had the water been a bit higher the cars on the road would have been floating. As it was, I later heard there were people kayaking in downtown Moab. 

By the time we reached the hotel our shoes and pants were soaked. But we were overjoyed to be back on dry ground, and I have a new respect for flash floods. 

Between the Bands

Between the Bands

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There are flood warnings and tornado warnings here today, as what’s left of Hurricane Debby pummels us from offshore. I slipped out during a lull, which I thought at first might be the eye of the storm, but which was more likely a gap between bands of rain and wind. 

I left sunglasses at home but almost wished I’d worn them as the clouds parted from time to time. For the most part, though, it was a cloudy walk and a wild one. Winds whipping. Sticks crunching beneath my feet. A sense of urgency: get home before the skies open.

I made it, and now I wait for the predicted deluge. We certainly need it. I can almost hear the trees and plants lapping it up.

Welcome Rain

Welcome Rain

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I had another post in mind for today but I’ll put it aside for this one. Because into this cauldron of heat and humidity has fallen what I thought I wouldn’t see again for weeks: a rainy day. 

It’s early yet, so it may not last. And a quick peek at the weather page tells me that we may not get as drenched as our neighbors to the east. But it’s a start. 

Waking up to wet pavement and gray skies is usually not a recipe for joy. But given our drought, it is today. 

(Rain falls in Manhattan, July 2021)

Running Water

Running Water

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It’s been a while since I’ve seen running water,  besides what I run through our taps. The streams in my neighborhood, the smallest tributaries of Little Difficult Run, have been dry for weeks. 

Yesterday I walked a section of the Cross County Trail that has a notoriously (to me!) difficult stone crossing. It should be dry enough to skip over, I thought, and decided to try it.

Turns out, that shady section of the trail is one of the few places where I’ve seen running water lately, where I’ve heard the music of liquid sluicing over stones.

I paused for a moment and took in the scene, the glare of sunlight on stream water, the tracery of shadows. I realized what I’ve been missing these last hot, dusty weeks.