Pinedale Snow
Winter in Pinedale
by Dawn Svalberg
2/29/04
February 29th only comes once every four years, and since it happened to also be a Sunday we thought we'd take some time to document this incredible snow we've had this winter. This is the most snow we've seen in town in many years, and this past week has brought between one to two feet of the total. Yards in town have from two to four feet. Some roofs and overhangs are looking a little bit scary with several feet of heavy, wet snow sitting on them. We saw more than one person up on their roofs today working on getting that snow off. The local hardware stores are sold out of long handled roof scraping tools to help get snow off, so people are make-shifting with standing on ladders and using long metal rakes and short snow shovels to get it down. The salespeople in the local hardware store told us all the stores in town are completely sold out of de-icing salt until next week which is used to clear ice off sidewalks and driveways.
As we made our drive around the neighborhood today, there were lots of folks out with snowblowers and 4-wheelers with blades on the front moving snow out of driveways and sidewalks. It was wonderful to see people showing their caring nature by taking extra time to pop next door to clear out the deep snowpiles in the driveways saving hours of back-breaking hand shoveling for their neighbors. We saw big town graders out working on the snow, snow plows, big pickup trucks with blades in front, medium sized pickup trucks with snowblades, a cute little mini-sized front end loader making the rounds clearing snowpiles, and many people outside with hand shovels and exhausted expressions clearing snow from their lots.
With the warming temperatures, we're seeing a pretty good crop of icicles growing from roofs, some of them several feet in length. A couple of homes in town have such long icicles growing in front of their living room windows to the point they look like ice bars, just like people have to do in the city to keep burglars out.
Town road maintenance crews are doing a great job of keeping the roads cleared, working day and night as each new storm hits. When they have extra time, they have been great about coming back down through the neighborhoods and helping clear out piles blocking in driveways and vehicles that got trapped in the plow's side berms. Some vehicles are completely snowed in and won't be found again until spring melt! The road crews have strategically placed snow dump piles in certain locations that are turning into mini mountains of their own! Some of these piles are a story tall! The kids, of course, love the snow piles and are thoroughly enjoying playing on them. Even some of the adults were getting some play in today abandoning shoveling the heavy wet snow and instead using the metal shovels as makeshift sleds to slide down some of the snowhills! Real sleds work better than snow shovel sleds, but the notion that snow is also meant to be played in, and not be just work to give you a sore back and arms, is important to remember when there is several feet of the stuff to shuffle around!
It's great to finally be seeing the end of our 6-year drought and having a more normal snow year again. Here are some pictures from our tour around Pinedale this leap year day, another page added to Pinedale's history as we celebrate our 100th anniversary this year.
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