Tag Archives: Winter

A Season Of Plenty

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It was a cold, cold day in January a year ago. It was snowing, the wind was like a knife as it struck you in the face and the temperature was dropping by the moment. So of course the only thing to do was grab your camera, put on all of your long underwear, every single pair, and go outside and take pictures.

But of what you might ask. Anything even remotely sentient was somewhere warm. Even the scenic always photographical trees were hiding under a mantle of warm snow and had faded from view, camouflaged and vaguely promising to reemerge again when the temperature registered on the thermometer once more, perhaps in the Spring.

But even with conditions like this there are those that must venture forth and do a job of work if they want to get fed. This bird, obviously some species that laughs at the cold and stares certain death in the eye from hypothermia or whatever it is called that freezes normal birds to death, was punched in and working its shift.

Busily harvesting tiny little seeds from a leftover seed pod it cracks them open with an audible pop, or at least it would be audible if there weren’t those gale force winds screaming past. There is just enough locked up energy in those minute seeds to power this small creature through another day of subzero winter conditions. It must eat a lot of those seeds as it appears to be in fine shape, almost portly as it were. For it, this is a season of plenty.

So on a cold blustery winter day when all normal people would be inside, except for wildlife photographers, Nature provides for its own. I’m sure this feathery adventurer has a place to go when it’s done eating. Perhaps a nice warm condo with in-floor heat, or maybe a clubhouse where it can wedge itself in amongst all the other birds of its type and share that body heat not to mention groove on that cool, make that warm, jazz playing in the background. Let’s not worry about it. If it can find something to eat in this weather, you know it has a backup plan.

Practising

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As Fall closes in on us all the animals in the park are preparing for the winter. For some like the Yellow-bellied Marmot this means gathering all the grass that it can stuff in its burrow. If you’re a buffalo not only do you stuff your big fat face with all the grass and foliage that you can, you also grow a thick mat of hair all over your body and especially on your face. This will allow you to push that face into the snow over and over again looking for that old frozen grass and not freeze your nostrils off.

Birds for the most part, being infinitely smarter than other animals just bail as soon they notice the cold and head for places that are warm. Miami, Rio, South Texas. They don’t bother with all that extra feeding. It’s hard to fly if you’re a 15 lb. Bluebird, so they opt for dining lightly on the trip south.We could go on and on about all the idiosyncrasies of the different animals preparing for winter but you all have cable, you watch the Animal Planet so you’re pretty aware of all the preparations they make.

What you may not know however is the huge amount of prep and practice that goes into the bears preparation for wintering over in Yellowstone. Especially grizzlies. Yes, you know about going in the cave, sleeping, then doing that some more until winters over and it’s safe to come out. But what you don’t know is how difficult it is for a naturally active grizzly bear to just go into that cave and go to sleep and stay that way for like six months or more sometimes.

He’s just had a very full summer of dashing around eating Elk calves, tearing the lids off of garbage cans, biting the occasional tourist, fighting with other grizzly bears, thinking bear thoughts, leaving bear tracks along the lake’s edge for tourists to find so they can see how big he is, having to deal with those pesky wolves, getting the occasional ear tag for some infraction or other. It’s a lot of work being a grizzly and along about November or even late October they have to go to bed again. Except they’re really amped. They are pumped up from the busy summer and sleep is the last thing on their minds.

They’re thinking about all the cool stuff they got away with this summer, pulling the door off that camping trailer, hooking up with that hot little female, running off before the rangers could shoot it with those rubber bullets. There’s no way it’s going to sleep.

But sleep it must. They can’t be up and goofing around during the winter, that’s not how this whole bear thing works. It’s designed for the bear to sleep for the winter or else everything just goes all wonky and we can’t have that. After an exhaustive study to see how these grizzly bears handle this problem it was found that they have developed a pretty inventive solution to it. They practice sleeping. That’s it. Just practice. Every chance they get, like after a great big meal of freshly killed buffalo for instance, they just crap out along side the carcass and sleep for as long as they can. That’s what this guy in the picture above is doing. You can’t see the carcass because he’s sprawled on top of it to keep the magpies and ravens from getting it. In a while he’ll wake up and eat some more, then go back to sleep again and will repeat this maneuver until he’s got the ability to got to sleep at the drop of a shinbone. This repetition of eating and sleeping gets his weight up to about eight hundred plus pounds or so, kind of like when we eat that Family size, Papa’s Favorite Pizza from Papa Murphy’s with extra red sauce and cheese at 2:30 in the morning and wake up later unable to fit our shoes on.

This is how they get all the sleep experience they require to stay asleep for months. This is also the time they perfect their dreaming skills. To see what they dream about check out this previous post http://www.bigshotsnow.com/2014/11/09/ and it will tell you all you need to know about Bear dreams. It won’t be long now before all that practice will be put to good use. The leaves will fall, the winds turn cold, and the long trek up the mountain to enter the cave he has used for the last six years will begin. Fortunately the bear has prepared himself well and as soon as he gets settled in and gets all turned around just right with his nose pointed toward the entrance, he will do that thing he does to cause him to fall asleep and that’s it. He’s in for the duration. He’ll sleep until the first trickle of melting snow runs down his back. Then he’ll be up and at it again. Nature has come full circle.

When Summer Changes To Fall

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With every major change of the seasons, Winter to Spring, Summer to Fall, the Canada geese would make their pilgrimages either North or South. To get there on time they would normally head in the intended direction when the weather was also starting to change. In the Spring the snow would still be lingering on the north slopes, and the back roads, unpaved as always, would be muddy tracks through the fields or trees. In the Fall the leaves would be well along, having changed color, drying out and wavering in the chilly wind, some having fallen already and crunching beneath my heavy boots.

My mind, sodden from the memory of the winter and the constancy of the cold, never quite believing that it would ever end, was hungry for the next signs promising the change and deliverance of the next season. When I thought I was at the end of my patience that’s when the Canada geese would appear. I would begin listening for them, impatient for their arrival, scanning the horizon for those first waves of V shaped formations, their strong wings powering their way towards me. I would listen harder and eventually I would be rewarded with the staccato cries of the geese calling from high up in the clouds. My ears catching every note as it sifted down through the grey misty haze and broke like sharp, crystal-edged flakes of sound around my soul. Each call a request, an invitation to join them, if only I weren’t locked tightly to the earth.

Take me with you, I would say to them quietly, take me with you. Often I would call it loudly up into the sky in a vain attempt to reach them, to make them see that I was trapped here and could not leave. I wanted desperately to join them, to go with them to those far off places, but they never paused in the steady rhythmic beating of their wings. If they saw or heard me they showed no sign of it, for I was not of them.

Year after year, season after season, it never failed to happen. When the first wings appeared out of the distance, impossibly high, looking like dotted lines drawn against the expanse of sky, their bodies just a dark silhouette, always, always when the first faint call reached out of the mist, the thought would jump unbidden into my mind. Look, I am here, take me along.

Heading north in the Spring and south in the Fall, stark against a deep blue sky, every feather outlined in perfect detail, or passing through clouds, their shapes becoming faint and opaque like shadows barely seen in the darkness. Their calls muffled, the size of their bodies getting ever smaller as I watched them recede into the distance, their calls fainter and fainter until they were gone and only an echo of them remained in my mind. Take me with you, I would say, and though I was forever rooted to the ground, I never ceased to ask.

Now years later I still find that catch in my throat as I stand here leaning against the door frame, my nose pressed tightly against the metal mesh inhaling the sharp metallic tang of cool fall air through the screen door. I’m waiting once again for the sound and sight of the high-flying geese heading South. I am here and the season is changing yet again.

The Last Hurrah

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On the Going To The Sun highway, just a little ways from Logan’s Visitor Center there is a valley that will take your breath away. There are many valleys in Glacier National Park but this one is spellbinding. It has all the features that make a valley spectacular. Towering cliff walls, verdant green trees reaching up its sides, an echoing view that recedes back into the distance. Plus a small stream called Lunch Creek that runs down out of the mountains to drop into quickly onto the valley floor below.

Who or what was lunch is not explained. This is a place where you can let your imagination run wild. Personally there’s a preference for mammoth grizzly bears and Mountain men with damp powder but then that’s just me. Your mileage may vary.

While there a constant stream of clouds formed over the mountains in the background and flowed down through the valley sometimes obscuring it completely. Then the wind would kick up and run them out only to complete the cycle over and over again. The emerald greenness of the valley did nothing to discourage intermittent snow squalls that sometimes brought the visibility down to zero. But the ground was still too warm and the snow never had a chance.

It wouldn’t be long though. There was a bitterness in the wind that would not be denied. Soon the snow would stick, so this was pretty much the last hurrah as far as Summer went. The road, Going To the Sun, would be closed before long and then there’d be the long wait as we slogged through Winter before we could get back up there and see the valley again. Start crossing the days off your calendar. You don’t want to miss this sight.

Rumble In The Rockies

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Many of you are not clear on how things work here in the Rocky Mountains. Especially as it pertains to the changing of the seasons. You think it’s all just automatic. Some of it is but even so there’s science at work here. Big hairy important science. The kind they make television shows about. The most common misconception is that Winter and its attending snow and cold appear out of the North, invading us like the shock troops at the forefront of that cold weather blitzkrieg known as the Saskatchewan Screamer. Not so. We’ve been blaming our brothers to the North for our misery unnecessarily. Sorry, Canada. However that doesn’t let them completely off the hook. They deserve to be blamed for plenty else, Justin Bieber, to name just one thing, but not for Winter.

The real cause of Winter and this is substantiated if not like totally proven, with improbable theory, old husbands tales, Bigfoot followers, alien probing proponents, people who read those newspapers at the supermarket checkouts, Republicans, Democrats, movie producers, other people who should know better, and Eugene that guy who listens to talk radio 24 hrs. a day, is Snow Volcanoes. I will repeat that, Snow Volcanoes. I know, I know, a collective gasp of disbelief just went racing across the internet, but here is proof.

In the photo above you see the caldera of this awakening Snow Volcano as it spews cold misty clouds filled with moisture that will soon turn into snow. This is the beginning of many eruptions to come as we proceed into Winter.

But wait, you say, isn’t a volcano just a rupture on the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as the Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface? Yes, yes, yes, it is but that’s a HOT volcano. We’re talking about COLD volcanoes. The ones you don’t know anything about, which is why we’re putting out this post. To inform you and bring you up to speed on the latest scientific stuff.

You all know about the freeze-thaw thing that happens, such as when you leave a bottle of beer out on the picnic table overnight when it’s really cold out and the next morning after you’re done heaving your lasagna into the porcelain cistern and you remember you left that beer outside and you rush out to drink it thinking it will make you feel better and you find that freeze-thaw thing has been at work. The frozen beer has been warmed by the sun and expanded, forcing its way out of the bottle, shattering it in the process, as the ice and cold try to escape from its confinement. Well that’s how a cold volcano works.

Underneath the mountain range is a pool of really cold material known as uhm, I’m not sure, but it’s cold, take my word for it. The caldera is bowl-shaped, just perfect for focusing the rays of the sun into its center where the super-energized sunshine, what is known in scientific circles as heat, makes it way down the chimney towards the pool of that super but unnamed cold stuff. As the summer progresses and it gets hotter, so does that concentrated heat that is racing down to meet the cold material. Nature, loving to blow crap up can hardly wait to see what happens as the pressure builds and builds until it is say, November 18th and then, back up, Loretta, it’s going to blow. The pent-up cold and snow seeing its opportunity to escape its confinement races up the chimney and sends a plume of snow and cold miles into the atmosphere. As it falls and lands on your house you are receiving the fulmination of the Snow Volcano. This continues until you are butt deep in fulminations.

That is the eruption, and it doesn’t just happen once. It happens over and over, all winter long until you just can’t… well you know, you’ve been through it before. This then is the beginning of winter and its cause isn’t Canada but Snow Volcanoes. Now you know why and how it happens and that makes dealing with it easier. If you have any questions or concerns about this process feel free to contact us using the concerned and confused email address provided on the site. Thanks and remember, Winter is just around the corner.

This Is Not Your Grandmother’s Sand

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You know how you’re sometimes paging through a magazine or looking at pictures on the net and you come across one that stops you in your tracks and you say “Ok, Now that’s pretty neat.” Well that’s the kind of views you get when you look around Great Sand Dunes National Park, especially at sunset.  That’s when you get that great light coming out of the west. The kind that turns the sand into molten gold and the mountains into an icy blue backdrop.

 This is not your grandmother’s sand. This isn’t litter box grey or the blinding white you get at your favorite beach. There are millions of colors trapped in these grains of sand just waiting for the light to release them, and release them it does. It just takes the right angle, the right intensity, the right time, and you to be there to witness them.

This was taken at the end of March at about 6 P.M. and although it was cold, as you can see by the snow still tucked in the valley there in the mountains, the light was fantastic. Because it was early Spring and fragments of Winter were still hanging on, there weren’t many people around to walk the dunes and leave their tracks across the unblemished faces of sand. Even if there had been the wind would have soon have re-sculpted the dunes faces, scouring them clean, erasing all signs that anyone had walked there. Tracks don’t last long on the dunes. This is not a place to permanently leave your mark. This is a place to view and etch the scene permanently into your memory or record it with your camera, or better yet both.

The Great Sand Dunes is a place where you can experience solitude, feel what it’s like to be out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the towering dunes, the blue mountains behind them, the wind blowing by. To see the last of the sunlight making the dunes fire up in all their blazing glory, a place where you can experience Nature at her best.  If you’re out here wandering around the Southwest stop by the Great Sand Dunes and be prepared  to be amazed.

Springtime In Scott’s Bluff

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Some of you out there have written in to say that Spring is happening in other parts of the country besides the Rockies. While we don’t dispute that statement entirely we still stand by our position that Spring is really a Mountain event best seen by visiting any part of the high country now. We suggest that you hurry west until you run into the area where the ground is pointing sharply upwards then proceed with caution so you don’t smack into something beautiful.

Now having said that we understand that some of you may have strong regional feelings, and for that we’re truly sorry, and even think, misguided as it may be, that Spring is beautiful near where you live. We can’t help you much with that other than to sympathize and make the offer yet again for you to come visit out here, in the mountains, the home of Spring itself.

In order to placate some of you that have sent in rather heated letters stating that you’d appreciate a little acknowledgement of your local beauty we have decided to show you a view of somewhere different today. This would be Scott’s Bluff Nebraska, a place on the way to the Rockies. It’s famous for being a spot to reach early in your trip, if you were tripping in a wagon train full of covered wagons on your way to California in the 1800’s.

You definitely wanted to be here in very early Spring if you were going to make it over the mountains and into California before winter set in again. So, as many of you who got here and saw the daunting task of the journey yet before you said “screw it I’m staying here” this became a regular sight every Spring and we have to admit, it is pretty. Actually it’s very pretty and we’re almost convinced that there are very lovely places if one does venture away from the mountains occasionally. I realize that this might be construed as a heretical statement but we try to be fair and impartial here.

Here’s another view of  the same area.

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See it’s nice.

Alright then. That should satisfy those of you who are convinced that Spring exists other places than here in the Rocky Mountains.