Mountain snow visit
Dec. 22nd, 2021 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tiggymalvern
Monday was the Cle Elum Christmas Bird Count, so as usual I headed over the mountains on Sunday afternoon. The weather was glorious, all blue sky and sunshine over the peaks and the expanse of snow-laden trees. When I arrived in Cle Elum, the scene behind my hotel was snowy, in a wonderful late afternoon, with the surrounding roads well compacted.
The forecast said heavy snow starting around 1am. I can't confirm that, but I can say that when I left the hotel at 4am to go owling, my footprints from the night before were filled with another four inches of snow.
It has long been known that owls don't go out in heavy snowfall, and our vaguely scientific pre-dawn survey backed that up. We found zero owls. I'm sure the owl population of Cle Elum fed very well in the windless clear hours between 5pm and 1am and then when to bed when the snowstorm rolled in.
We called off the owling early and went to the cafe that opens at 6am in Cle Elum. (Cle Elum is the definition of a one horse town, sprawled along a road that parallels the freeway, and it's very much the kind of place that caters to passing traffic, including HGVs.) Then at 7.30am, as the light emerged, we went out to count the birds.
It was still snowing heavily, and it continued to snow on and off throughout the day. It was all immensely pretty, but finding little tweety birds was hard work, as most of them wanted to stay in bed too. The number of species we found was pretty much as expected, though overall numbers were subdued by the weather.
Our most impressive moment of the day came along Hidden Valley. It's an area we've seen elk on previous years of the count, but generally they're lying around in a snowy field. This year, a herd of about a dozen bull elk decided to cross the right right in front of us and then jump over the fence.
Bull elk in the road.
Elk on the move in a video here:
https://youtu.be/17vkAk6DCIo
Yes, we stayed in the car and filmed through the windscreen. Those things weigh about a thousand pounds and you don't want to attract their interest. But they were amazing to watch, as they hauled all that weight laboriously over a fence.
Then at 4pm, we left Cle Elum as the light dwindled, to head back over the mountain pass. Always fun! Lots of HGVs chaining up with the inside lane basically becoming a big lorry park, and a speed limit of 35mph which was perfectly reasonable in the conditions. Most people were happy to stay at 35-40mph in the tyre tracks of the car in front, but there are always a few lunatics who want to pass everyone at 60 in the 'lane' that's all fluffy fresh snow.
Knowing that the forecast had said there would be more than a foot of snowfall on Monday, I'd packed a sleeping bag in the car just in case. Snoqualmie pass had been closed through most of Saturday under similar conditions because so many people had crashed. I always work on the principle that if you prepare for the worst, the worst won't happen, and once again it didn't. I was able to get home and go to work as normal on Tuesday, though I'd considered the possibility I might have to text them and say sorry I was stuck.
One of the things I love about living in the Seattle area is having the option to visit snow whenever I like without the hassle of living with it on a daily basis!
The forecast said heavy snow starting around 1am. I can't confirm that, but I can say that when I left the hotel at 4am to go owling, my footprints from the night before were filled with another four inches of snow.
It has long been known that owls don't go out in heavy snowfall, and our vaguely scientific pre-dawn survey backed that up. We found zero owls. I'm sure the owl population of Cle Elum fed very well in the windless clear hours between 5pm and 1am and then when to bed when the snowstorm rolled in.
We called off the owling early and went to the cafe that opens at 6am in Cle Elum. (Cle Elum is the definition of a one horse town, sprawled along a road that parallels the freeway, and it's very much the kind of place that caters to passing traffic, including HGVs.) Then at 7.30am, as the light emerged, we went out to count the birds.
It was still snowing heavily, and it continued to snow on and off throughout the day. It was all immensely pretty, but finding little tweety birds was hard work, as most of them wanted to stay in bed too. The number of species we found was pretty much as expected, though overall numbers were subdued by the weather.
Our most impressive moment of the day came along Hidden Valley. It's an area we've seen elk on previous years of the count, but generally they're lying around in a snowy field. This year, a herd of about a dozen bull elk decided to cross the right right in front of us and then jump over the fence.
Bull elk in the road.
Elk on the move in a video here:
https://youtu.be/17vkAk6DCIo
Yes, we stayed in the car and filmed through the windscreen. Those things weigh about a thousand pounds and you don't want to attract their interest. But they were amazing to watch, as they hauled all that weight laboriously over a fence.
Then at 4pm, we left Cle Elum as the light dwindled, to head back over the mountain pass. Always fun! Lots of HGVs chaining up with the inside lane basically becoming a big lorry park, and a speed limit of 35mph which was perfectly reasonable in the conditions. Most people were happy to stay at 35-40mph in the tyre tracks of the car in front, but there are always a few lunatics who want to pass everyone at 60 in the 'lane' that's all fluffy fresh snow.
Knowing that the forecast had said there would be more than a foot of snowfall on Monday, I'd packed a sleeping bag in the car just in case. Snoqualmie pass had been closed through most of Saturday under similar conditions because so many people had crashed. I always work on the principle that if you prepare for the worst, the worst won't happen, and once again it didn't. I was able to get home and go to work as normal on Tuesday, though I'd considered the possibility I might have to text them and say sorry I was stuck.
One of the things I love about living in the Seattle area is having the option to visit snow whenever I like without the hassle of living with it on a daily basis!
