The Myth Of Spring
By Ron Marr (03/12/04)
Folks in the down below love to wax eloquent about Springtime in the Rockies. They wish to hear the roar of an icy stream, imagining symphonic majesty as the snows of Olympus shed their alpine lairs and cascade toward the sea. They yearn to smell the scent of the lodgepole pines, long to feel the sun's kiss as they stroll an emerald quilt haphazardly stitched with a rainbow vista of Bluebells, Paintbrush and Jacobs Ladder. They desire the crisp breeze and the campfire's crackle, the taste of pan-fried trout and the gentle caress that is a Rocky Mountain gloaming.
Folks in the down below love to wax eloquent about Springtime in the Rockies. They usually start waxing around the first of March...thus risking carpal tunnel damage on their waxing arm and polishing spring's dream down to the primer.
Allow me to tell you about spring. Last Friday night, here in the far backwoods of Idaho, we were hit with one of the hardest blizzards I have seen in years. The snow blew to the east, then to the west, then to the south. The winds kicked up to, at a minimum estimate, 60 mph. Visibility was roughly two feet. The power was out for a bit over 24 hours. Lines and poles were down, utterly demolished. By morning, when the storm abated, it appeared that a bomb had gone off. Nearly three feet of new snow piled against the fences, drifted against the buildings and climbed nearly to the eves.
Some folks would find this pretty...mostly those who happen to view photos of it while sitting in a Miami condo. The calendar may say that spring begins on March 20th, but anyone who has made their home in the harsh reaches of the up-there knows better. I am expecting my last patch of snow to disappear in late June. That's not an exaggeration, seeing as how one pile on my property is now 20 feet long and 15 feet deep.
The advent of the warm times in the Rockies is a gorgeous and magical event, and the sights, sounds, smells and tastes so fancied by the chronic waxers are very real. However, it would be a mistake to say that we ever really have spring in these parts. We have winter, a few months of frigid rain and mud, and then suddenly leap straight into summer. That is when things get gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. However, during the spring months of the lowlands we are most commonly found hoping that the wood pile can be stretched and that we don't freeze to death.
In March, April and May I walk outside and everything squishes and stinks. Mud. Sticky, oozing, clinging, rotting mud. It's cold enough during this time that you still need a fire (it's 19 this morning) but warm enough you can split wood in a t-shirt and still break a sweat. It may snow on any given night, but the stuff will melt within 36 hours. The climate of the Rockies becomes quite passive-aggressive between late March and late May. It doesn't know whether to fish or cut bait. Neither do I. It's too chilly to kill fish (at least for me) but so tepid that the bait will get overly rank if I slice up a batch.
This is a much different spring for me than in years past. The winter has been long, and as I'm in a place I really haven't enjoyed, I received neither thrill nor smiles from the infinite storms and piles of white. I'm packing boxes in preparation for a move (to where...I have no idea) finishing up details of an unfortunate side-route on life's road. Most of my time is spent attempting to peddle a couple of hunks of real estate and weasel my way into a decent writing job. Let me tell you that sending out stacks of resumes and awaiting phone calls that never come is a less than enjoyable task; I guess 44 year old columnists with an entrepreneurish background are in almost as much demand these days as bongo players, philosophers and shepherds (the former two being areas in which I am quite accomplished, should anyone need a bongo playing philosopher).
I'm certain, somewhere to the not too distant south, things are already green and alive. There is movement, the air full of bird song and the land covered with young things which jump and scurry in playful anticipation of a life yet to be lived. This is good, and I'm sure my fellow metaphorical philosophers would be quick to conjecture that spring is the time of re-birth and renewal.
I could normally agree with that; the theory holds in some locales. Not here though. Springtime in the high reaches of the Rockies is seen less frequently than Bigfoot.
Me...I'm simply tending the fire, waiting for summer and wondering what comes next.
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