What fresh snow does to people

En route to a telemark ski lesson in the back country, a few cars whizzed past us on a somewhat slick mountain road. Presumably the drivers were eager to hit the slopes, blanketed with fresh powder. Minutes later we passed at least one of these cars, now smashed up on the left side of the road, tilting into a ditch, its right side dented. Another vehicle had spun and landed on the other side; its front fender hung by a thin strip of metal. No one was hurt. But no powder for these people, either.

Skiing at 11,000 feet

It sounds completely crazy. Maybe it was!

I dunno.

It seemed like an adventure and I lived to tell about it. The full story is here, on my other blog.

Enjoy!

Forecast, shmorecast

Apparently meteorologists out here are no better at predicting atmospheric conditions than their colleagues back East. The forecast had called for temperatures to be in the teens today, a bit too cold for a hike. But when I woke up the sky was bright blue and the sun unobscured by the inaccurately predicted partial clouds. I opened my living room window to get a feeling for the air temperature and it seemed much warmer than the mid-teens. To be on the safe side, before getting dressed and driving 30 miles for a hike, I went online and looked up current conditions.

Checking www.wunderground.com at around 11 a.m., it said that current temperatures in my zip code were 16 and would remain steady or fall throughout the day. Not so, I thought. Indeed, when I got into my car and headed toward Jefferson County Open Space, my thermometer said it was a balmy 28 degrees. That number increased to 30-32 as I got further away from the city. In other words, the actual temperature was DOUBLE that which had been forecast.

What's interesting, and perhaps a bit sad, is that so many people spend so much time discussing the nuances of the weather forecast and very often it is plain wrong. To quote my meditation teacher, the next time someone launches into an animated discussion, description or denunciation of the forecast, I will simply reply, "Is that so?"

Reversal of Fahrenheit

Yesterday afternoon it was a balmy 56 degrees in Denver. With the sun shining and people out running and cycling in short sleeves, it hardly felt like December.

Twenty four hours later the temperature had plummeted to zero, a descent so steep that it makes recent stock market declines look like mild turbulence by comparison.

I'm still marveling at this reversal of Fahrenheit. Luckily it works both ways - by tomorrow the temperature is supposed to skyrocket to a relatively balmy 20 degrees.

Stinky Snow

A cold front came in yesterday, bringing with it the stench of the stockyards just north of the city. Being new here, I would not have been able to identify the odor had one of my studio mates not pointed it out. We were outside to reshuffle our cars, parked end to nose in the narrow strip of driveway behind our building. As the wet snow fell in straight lines, behaving like semi-solid rain rather than fluffy flakes, out of morbid curiosity I took a whiff of the cold air and immediately regretted it. For a brief moment I felt a bit nauseous, much as I felt one day in Israel when a wind storm whipped up sand from Egypt, depositing loads of disgusting dust on Jerusalem. I hope that my future associations with snow are not forever tainted by this olfactory misadventure of inhaling particles of fecal matter, flesh and blood.

Today the sun was out. The tainted snow melted quickly and the air was fresh and still once again.

Colorado Contrasts

1. Weather: A few days ago when I left my house at 9 a.m to go to a yoga class it was 47 degrees. At 11:30 a.m. it was 77 degrees, rendering my choice of attire - a thick sweater -entirely inappropriate. It was as if I left my house in autumn and by noon it was summer.
2. Clothing: As a result of the weather fluctuations, it is possible to see people dressed for several seasons occupying the same place. While hiking on Sunday wearing pants, a fleece, vest and gloves, I saw a jogger wearing tiny shorts and a sports bra. For every person who was bundled up there was another wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
3. Housing: Across the street from my modest apartment building there are a few luxury condos for sale. They both have custom made carved wooden built-in furnishings handcrafted in Indonesia. One has a master bathroom with a shower with seven water jets and a foot massager. Both have enormous jacuzzis. They range in price from $399,000-$699,000. Just half a block away from these high-end residences is some sort of halfway house, I'm guessing, in front of which a group of middle-aged men always seem to be hanging out and smoking.

So, how dry is it here?

Colorado has a dry climate.

Make that a very dry climate.

It finally sunk in how dry it is when I noticed that a teabag that I had left in a cup was completely dessicated within a day or so, brittle to the touch, as if a vacuum had sucked out all the moisture. Back East, leave a teabag around for awhile and, if there is any water left in the cup, one might start to grow a colorful mold. Yes, I confess to having inadvertently cultivated more than a few spores in my time in the Boston area.

Today while walking home from the post office I noticed that many of the leaves on the ground were completely withered and wispy, quickly disintegrating in the dry air.

As far as I can tell I haven't started to shrivel. To deal with the dryness my humidifier runs 24/7, I drink continuously and I use copious amounts of moisturizer.

Anyway, time to go grab another drink!