While reading recently about
Kit Carson’s role in the settling of the West, I was struck
by how mountain men more than 150 years ago dealt with the
elements, particularly winter weather. Amazingly, they rode horses
huge distances over unknown terrain without wearing Gore-Tex,
Thinsulate or other advanced “technical clothing.”
They mostly ate bacon, beans and wild game, and jerky was
their energy bar. Heat came from a real fire, and a person was
twice warmed by cutting firewood. Four-wheel-drive was a mule. And
the county plow crew definitely was not coming today. Nor tomorrow.
There were no espresso bars. Self-defense was no laughing matter,
and the firearms of the time were persnickety.
By
comparison, we modern-day Westerners have it easy. We consider it
traumatic when the power goes out, leaving us without NFL action
and Internet access. Life is cozy in my house, writing on my laptop
before the propane blaze.
Still, I have begun to find
winter a pain. While some locals still get giddy over the cold and
the frequent snow, I want it over, though that’s probably
because for 16 years I’ve cleared my 85-pace driveway after
snowstorms with a plastic scoop shovel. Some of these efforts have
been memorable, especially since they followed a four-foot dump in
November 1997, and a seven-footer in March 2003. This
winter’s series of snowstorms has sent me shoveling day after
day, and for some reason now that I am 47, this doesn’t seem
as much fun as it did when I first moved to the mountains. While my
neighbors gear up with snow-blowers, truck-mounted snow blades and
tractors, small and large, I shovel away, wondering how much of
this stuff has to fall to stockpile enough water for summer.
At the heart of this winter’s discontent is that I
feel trapped. Snowshoeing and cross-country skiing are OK, but
I’d rather just take off and run. Yet like a lot of people,
both newcomers and old-timers, I forget how serious snow can be.
During one heavy snowfall before New Year’s Day, my neighbor,
Joanne, who was in the process of moving here from North Dakota,
took ill. She called to ask if I could feed her horses since she
was feeling too tired to do it. When I went over to help, I knocked
on her door, but for some reason, she didn’t answer.
Back at home I explained this to my wife, and she tried
to call Joanne. No answer. Later that evening I went back out into
the storm and rapped on her door until she called out weakly,
“Is someone there?” I spoke with her through a cracked
door and grew more concerned.
The next morning, snow
steadily falling outside, her husband in North Dakota called us,
worried sick, and we decided that I’d drive his wife to the
clinic. There, as we waited to see the doctor, we listened to talk
about snowbound highways, jackknifed semi-trailers and vehicles
sliding off the road. Finally, the doctor took Joanne back, and
after more than an hour came out to say that she had a
“whopping pneumonia” and was being prepped for an
ambulance ride to a hospital in Pueblo, Colo., 50 miles to the
east. Joanne was hospitalized for 12 days, then went back to North
Dakota to recuperate. I’m not sure when she’ll be back,
but I’m feeding her horses.
One Sunday after that,
when the temperature was hovering at about 8 degrees, a neighbor
called in an attempt to cure his own stir-craziness. I convinced
him to go running and agreed to drive to his house so we could
leave from there. On the way I realized the road was covered with a
few inches of unbroken powder, making running tough.
In
the warmth of my friend’s house we discussed the conditions
until suddenly, his face brightened. The next thing I knew, I was
riding shotgun in his pickup equipped with a snowplow, and we were
clearing snow off a county road — a little job that I’m sure
would be frowned upon by the real road crew. Soon we’d plowed
enough snow for a 3.5-mile jog in the cold. Compared to Kit Carson
we might have been wimps, but at least on that day, we beat winter.
Hal Walter is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country news (hcn.org).
He shovels snow and words from his home in the Wet Mountains near
Westcliffe, Colorado.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
