Column by Hal Walter
Mountain Life – February 2007 – Colorado Central Magazine
RECENTLY WHILE READING the book Blood and Thunder, a chronicle of Kit Carson’s role in settling the West, I was struck by the tenacity of the early settlers, not to mention Native Americans, in dealing with the elements, particularly winter weather.
Quite amazingly, they covered great distances over largely untracked terrain without Gore-Tex, Thinsulate or other “technical clothing.” They lived without much access to fresh fruit and vegetables, subsisting primarily on bacon, beans, and wild game. Jerky was their “energy bar.”
Heat came from a real fire, and one was twice warmed by cutting his own firewood.
Four-wheel-drive was a mule. And the county plow crew definitely was not coming today. Or any day, for that matter.
There were no espresso bars. Self-defense was no laughing matter and the blackpowder firearms of the time were somewhat persnickety.
By comparison, we modern-day settlers of the West have it quite easy. We consider it a death-defying trauma when the power goes out, leaving us without NFL action, Internet access and running water.
Life is quite cozy here, writing a column on my laptop before the propane blaze. Still, I find wintertime quite limiting. While some of my neighbors are nearly giddy over the recent cold and snow, I am simply over it.
For years I have cleared my 85-pace driveway after significant snowstorms with a plastic Ames Grain Hog scoop shovel. Some of these efforts have been quite memorable, including a 4-foot dump in November of 1997 when I was 37, and a 7-footer in March 2003 when I was 43. The latter storm was shoveled in two efforts of several hours each over two days and left a somewhat tunnel-like road.
This year’s series of snowstorms has been dealt with in similar fashion. Thankfully the snows came in four installments. Cursedly, the wind twice drifted the driveway back over after I had shoveled, requiring some extra scooping. I am now 47, and maybe this sort of thing isn’t as easy as it was when I first moved here at 31.
Recently I had an admission: I’ve done this for several years. I can still do it. But I don’t know just how long I can continue to do it. I’m not sure whether the weariness is physical or mental.
Honestly, the “why” of it is beginning to wear on me. I am certain there are places a person can live that do not require monumental efforts in snow shoveling and overexposure to arctic elements. But there are tradeoffs, and life here is generally good.
Some have suggested that I get a tractor or some other snow-plowing device, but I’ve seen my neighbors spend entire days driving such contraptions. I simply don’t want to spend that much time driving a tractor. And I don’t really like the idea of being dependent on a machine.
At the heart of this winter discontent is that I am an active outdoor sort and enjoy activities like running, riding, fishing, and sunbathing much more than shoveling snow. And with every year my tolerance for painfully cold hands, feet and cheeks fades a little more.
We did a little cross-country skiing this year after our friend and neighbor Kevin groomed a track with his snowmobile. There was one blissful evening of kicking and gliding when the sun was setting and the moon was rising. Then the wind came up and ski season, at least locally, was cut short. The combination of sugary and icy conditions, made worse by driving winds, rendered the conditions quite lousy despite Kevin’s repeated attempts at grooming. One particularly windy day the track disappeared within an hour of his driving over it.
I suppose we’ve had it far too easy for a number of winters. There have been some cold spells for sure, but it’s been some years since deep snow has covered the ground for more than a few days.
DURING THE THIRD ROUND of snow before New Year’s Day, one of my neighbors took ill. I had fed Joanne’s horses for more than a year while she was in the process of moving here from North Dakota and building a house. Joanne called to say she was weak with the flu and asked if I could feed her horses one evening. When I went over to do it, I knocked on the door of her live-in “tackroom” to check on her and give her some ginger ale. She didn’t answer.
Back at home I explained this to my wife and she tried to call. No answer. We became concerned. Later that evening I went back out into the storm and rapped on her door until she called out weakly “is someone there?” She seemed slightly disoriented but balked sternly at the idea of going to the doctor. She wouldn’t let me inside saying she was afraid I would catch whatever she had.
By the next morning her husband had called from North Dakota and I drove back over to take her to the Custer County Medical Clinic. I was unsure if I would be able to make it into her driveway and had to shovel a turnout in order to back my pickup around and drive back out. I drove carefully out to Colorado 96 and on into Westcliffe.
We waited for some time to see the doctor and listened to talk among the clinic’s office staff about how Highway 96 through Hardscrabble Canyon had been closed overnight. There were jackknifed semitrailers, and vehicles sliding off the road. I was glad we had made it to the clinic.
Finally they took Joanne back and after more than an hour they called me back, too. Dr. Bob Bliss explained that she had a “whopping pneumonia” and that they were starting an IV and getting her prepped for an ambulance ride to Pueblo. I looked at Joanne lying in the hospital bed and thought about the weather, and the stories of the disabled vehicles in Hardscrabble Canyon. I looked outside at the steadily falling snow and realized that I probably could have driven her to Pueblo myself by now. We spoke briefly and she seemed alert. It didn’t feel quite right leaving her there alone, but I felt like I might be in the way of the medical personnel, so I said goodbye and left.
I went to Candy’s Coffee Shop where I learned from a member of the ambulance crew that the only available driver they had been able to find to transport Joanne had just completed her training and had never actually driven the ambulance in snowy conditions.
I understand the ambulance ride was without incident, though. Joanne was in St. Mary-Corwin hospital in Pueblo for about 11 days. After she was released her husband took her back to North Dakota to recuperate, and I’m really not expecting to see her until spring.
One Sunday when the temperature was hovering at about 8 above and I was pulling on several layers of clothes in preparation for going running, the phone rang. A neighbor who shall remain nameless was calling in an attempt to cure his stir-craziness. In a short time I had convinced him to go running with me. We agreed I would drive to his house and we would go from there.
On the way I realized the tracks of drivers had disappeared and that I was cutting through a few inches of unbroken powder. The driving wasn’t bad but the running would be tough.
In the warmth of my friend’s house we talked about the conditions for a little while before he said: “I have an idea.”
The next thing I knew I was riding shotgun in his pickup equipped with a snowplow and we were clearing a county road, something I’m sure would be frowned upon by local authorities in this age of too many rules and liability. But what the hell. We were on a mission from God. Soon we had plowed enough snow for a 3.5-mile jog in the cold.
Winter, like life I suppose, is what you make of it.
Hal Walter spends his long winters and short summers on his 35 acres near the ghost town of Ilse in the Wet Mountains.
