Winter Tracks

After years of drought, monster snows have returned to Lassen Peak. Even Vulcan's Throne, the 500 foot high black lava mole on its southwest face, is blasted white, a rare sight. Meteorogolists for the California Department of Water Resources tell us that the water content of the snow pack is the most EVER for this early in the season. Truly, nature's bountiful precip bodes well for fish and fowl in 2011. There's no telling if the snowflakes will continue to bury the mountains for the duration of winter and into the spring, but it's a most encouraging start.

Winter in Manton. There is snow, but not too much to travel. There is cold, but just enough to make the apple trees and grapes go dormant. New Year's Eve was the perfect example. We got two or three inches overnight at our place, elevation 2,700 feet. It stuck to the trees, covered roof tops and transformed the woods into the proverbial winter wonderland, a perfect Christmas card, just one week late. There's some excitement to driving without chains, to be the first traversing Cedar Ridge Road, hidden by a white blanket, vaguely outlined by the walls of trees on either side.
Slipping and sliding, we glide on home more like a sleigh than a car.

While snow hides the usual landscape, in a strange and wonderful way it reveals the history of things unseen and mysterious: animal tracks. I'm no expert in determining the authors of these various marks in the snow, some small, some unsettlingly large. I know we have rabbits, squirrels, skunks and foxes. Large prints are more intriguing. I have learned that dogs cannot retract their claws, while mountain lions can. We have both wandering by our master bedroom, silent in their nocturnal prowling.

Seldom seen icicles are also a treat. Like mushrooms, one day they just suddenly appear. The sun comes out and with a chorus of watery drips they vanish again until next winter. For whatever reason, most likely the usual manic overload of holiday activity, I had failed to check my rain gauge for awhile. It's mounted on a fence post about chest high, well away from the house. What a surprise! Never saw this before: my rain gauge contained a fourteen inch tall perfectly cylindrical and transparent ice popsicle. I removed it and carried it bare-handed back to the house where I displayed it proudly to my wife Donna through the living room window before dropping it on the cement patio. It shattered into four or five smaller popsicles.

I find comfort in even the usual and expected aspects of our Manton winter... The Christmas tree lit up at night down by the old fire station. The sign on Highway 36 just leaving Red Bluff stating the loop road through Lassen Park is closed, buried now in packed snow measured in dozens of feet. Eskimo Hill at the summit of Highway 44 is popular again with kids on inner tubes and makeshift sliding devices. But most of all, there is just the joy of the land at rest, the silence and serenity of the snowy woods. The mittens, neck scarf and wool hat come out of the bottom drawer and get regular use for a few months. A piping hot cup of hot chocolate or tea is enormously welcome. Cards from distant friends catch us up on another year gone by.

This time of year the dreaded dense and frigid tule fog fills the great central valley of California like a gray/white lake. From numerous vantage points in Manton we can look down on this vast winter sea and across to the snow-covered peaks of the Yolla Bolly Wilderness of the Coast Range. Between storms the sun still has some warmth, though the clear blue sky is crisp and cold, particularly in the shade. When the snow returns, it can be mesmerizing. There is a very strange sensation I experience sometimes when gazing out the window at a particularly heavy snowfall in progress. Giant flakes cascade straight down like millions of white moths falling from above. Suddenly I feel as though the house is rising up and the trees as well are rapidly ascending. One could even say, it's an uplifting experience!

Happy New Year to One and All!

Tom Knight, Broker
MANTON REALTY