Season Wrap Up

Well, the joke goes that the Seattle winter officially ends just in time for July 4th. But this winter has not been a typical one here. The primary reason is that we got snow and lots of it. It all started back in December, right before Christmas when Seattle received about 15" of snow over two or three days. We were lucky that our flight to LA got out on Christmas eve. We were delayed by two hours, primarily because they had to evacuate the plane at the gate next to ours because the de-icing chemicals had gotten into the ventilation system and made several people sick. We did not know this at the time, but later learned that it was on the national news so we put two and two together and realized why all of those emergency vehicles were blocking us from departing from our gate.

Anyway, getting back to the weather, it is worth noting that Seattle rarely gets more than a dusting of snow that typically turns to rain and melts withing a few hours. The city shuts down for just a few inches of snow, so you can imagine the panic that set in as the snow began to accumulate. For us it was like a typical snowstorm back east, but for Seattlites, it had been about 10-12 years since they had seen this much snow. So it was time to close offices, leave the car in the garage, and break out the cross-country skis to get around. Unfortunately, getting so little accumulated snow on a regular basis alleviates the need for snow removal equipment and things like, say, rock salt and snow shovels. As a result, sidewalks were terribly icy and after a day or so, driving on anything other than highways was like maneuvering on the lunar surface (I would imagine). We were thankful to escape to the warmth of LA.

We have also had a couple of more days in February and early March where we've had an accumulation of snow, but nowhere near the December dump. But, the interesting thing is that in my perception we've also had more sunny, clear days this winter than usual. Since I have a sample size of two winters, I'm clearly not the best judge, but I just don't feel like we've had the extended stretches of gray that are typical of Seattle winters...but, we still have all of April, May, and June.

Unfortunately, all of the snow did not translate into a great snowboard season. In part it was because the mountains just didn't get a steady dose of snow and in part because we did not make it up there as much as we hoped. However, we had one phenomenal day at Stevens Pass. It had snowed 16" the previous day and we got another 10" to 12" while we were up there (no snow in Seattle, though, thankfully). It made the trip home a bit tough since after we dug our car out, we sat, inching our way out of the parking lot for 45 minutes only to be told that the road was now closed. We now had to wait out avalanche control along Route 2 for two hours, but we made the best of it by parking the car and finagling two seats at the bar. We did make another trip up the next weekend, only to have Dave catch an edge and tweak his bad ankle on the first run of the day. Oh, well, we'll just have to wait until next season for more of this...