February 25th, 2013

see ya later, winter.

_Morning y'all,

It's another stunning day up top. There are some low hanging clouds to the east and a fiery sunrise is lighting up the sky, like a match to kerosene. The high yesterday reached 35 degrees. The low was 23 degrees. It's currently 29 degrees and clear at 7am observation. The mountain received no new precipitation, but with abundant sunshine there was a bit of melt. There is now only patchy snow up top.

I went down Alum and came up Rainbow yesterday. The trails are in pretty good shape. Whatever remaining snow has been packed down and there is sufficient traction on the upper slopes to make spikes a luxury item, depending on your comfort level. It must've reached 60 in the valley yesterday afternoon. It was the kind of day where you wear shorts and don't even feel like you have to brave it for 10 minutes or so to get warmed up. It's just comfortable. The lower half of Rainbow had that distinct, fecund aroma of the coming spring. I even saw a few daffodils trying to sprout on Cherokee Orchard Road! There's such a pregnant sense of anticipation with the coming spring, it's such an authentic kind of excitement no matter how much you treasure winter. We've been programmed to have a euphoric sense of relief as the winter months show signs of coming to a close, no matter how much we take our survival for granted in our day and age.