Dealing with a late May nightmare

I can understand folks dreaming of a white Christmas. A white Memorial Day is more like a nightmare.

I woke up Thursday morning and there was four inches of snow. By the time I had breakfast and settled in my recliner with a cup of coffee, it was almost eight inches of wet, heavy snow and still falling. Since I had to go to town, I thought I’d better get going before I was snowed in.

When I started at 7 a.m., it was 32 degrees with no prospect of warming. It was obvious that the ground had been warm, though, because the snow on the road was much less than what I cleaned off the hood of the car, so it was almost like driving on bare ground with muddy tracks trailing behind me as I drove.

I was the first car on the road until I got to the Hart compound and saw the tracks of another vehicle. Their timing was better than mine. Just a few hundred yards south of the Harts’, a large cottonwood had tipped across the road, completely blocking it.

I know. You would think that anyone who had lived on the North Fork for 60 years would always carry a chainsaw, or at least a sharp ax. Nope, neither one. Luckily I do carry a heavy duty nylon tow rope. After attempting several different angles, I was able to pull the tree over enough to squeeze by and continue down the road.

There was less and less snow as I continued south. By Polebridge, there was only a couple inches on the ground and the road was bare. Even the Camas Road was only wet. What a nightmare, but pretty to look at.

There is a good side, too. If the snow had been rain to the top of the mountains, maybe it would have caused a flood. With 32 degrees at my cabin, it was probably well below freezing on Parke Peak. That allows lower elevation moisture to get on down the river before upper elevation melt-off gets to us.

The snow also allows us to keep burning brush safely on the North Fork. Now burning permits are good until June 30, as opposed to the old 10-day permits. The new permits allow landowners to judge for themselves when it’s safe to burn, instead of relying on a clerk in Kalispell, where conditions are usually much drier than on the North Fork.

Of course, the landowner is still responsible for all costs if a fire gets out of control. That’s as it should be.