YOUR SPACE #SNOWPROS
DISTURBING UNCERTAINTY IN SNOW COUNTRY: AN ESSAY ON CLIMATE CHANGE By Chris Fellows
the same thing. Climate change serves as the obvious and most popular explanation for our aggregate angst; the snowfall we’ve
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trusted for years is now drastically inconsistent. It’s as if something we’ve always taken for granted, winter, might disappear like… well, melting snow. T e way people talk tells a much deeper
story about our collective view of the impending future. I’ve observed a dialect of uncertainty, evidenced by the use of the one-word question at the end of every sentence: Right? Someone will agree eventually. T is is just a rough season. Right? Every day I hear my
ersistent, low-level uneasiness crept into my psyche over the last couple of seasons. I can’t put my fi nger on the exact reasons for it, but many people I work with feel
close to my home said, “T e changes in the climate are aff ecting our livelihoods. Our mountain had a particularly hard year. T ere wasn’t much work, which translates to less money in our pockets. I rely on skiing to keep me healthy, and now I’ve gained weight. It seems like my healthy, skinny ski body was a fl ash in the pan, one of those things you look back on and say, those were the days.”
Change has always been a part of our
SNOW ISN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE… ANOTHER PINEAPPLE EXPRESS IS HEADED OUR WAY…
fellow West Coast snow sliders say words to the eff ect of: Snow isn’t what it used to be… Another Pineapple Express is headed our way… T e snow line is going to be above 7,500 feet… Another big layoff coming up after the holiday… Are we experiencing collective mental
depression. Or could we, like Plains farmers during the 1930s, be sensing and interpreting signs that presage a dramatic, Dust Bowl-like danger ahead? It’s ironic that many Dust Bowl
On March 7, 2011 on Donner Summit there was a 20-foot snowpack. In four short seasons the area has gone from all the lakes and reservoirs being full and substantial mountain snowpack to literally nothing.
8 | 32 DEGREES • FALL 2015
refugees settled in the West, and once again climate is causing migration. An instructor I know from Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State left in January for a job 3,000 miles away at Sunday River in Maine. He was happy with the choice, but realized that the bitter, Polar Vortex- induced cold temps and high winds made life as an instructor less than idyllic. An instructor who works at a resort
professional work environment – the seasonality adds to the freshness, and the cycle of birth-death-rebirth is invigorating. But, recently, Mother Nature can’t be counted on. T e rhythm of the West Coast winters from somewhat predictable
has shifted
deep Sierra Nevada dumps to wild, aberrant swings in temperature and wind, and ever-higher snow lines. Driving into Squaw Valley this winter, one could see a clear white-to-brown line ring the 7,500-foot contour mark around the entire valley. On days when the snow fell above the line, hoards of pent-up passholders bottlenecked the entrance to the Funitel lift, lining up like lab rats for their reward for staying in the maze. Others drove off the hill to go somewhere else, probably to bike and play golf when they’d otherwise be skiing and riding… maybe even taking lessons.
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