how are you coping with global warming and its consequences...?

[curmugeon]

No rain here yet... they say it should arrive after midnight...snow level will drop to 4500 feet locally....more white winter wonderland all around me.

Comments

[edbook.livejournal.com]

'still waiting for winter to get here. I haven't been to the mountains since late October because the snow is so poor up there.

Peace

[edbook.livejournal.com]

Joan, actually don't spend time doing any trail clearing except in summer... which is more walking (or driving) the trails and moving away fallen branches or trimming branches that hang into the trail.
In winter, trail grooming is driving one of the tracked grooming machines to smooth the surface or break up hard snow and ice to leave behind a corduroy-looking surface. But, the trails are mostly hard ice this year and there are lots of bare spots (where they're usually several feet of hard packed snow.

There has been a lot of rain on and off and temperatures about 7+ degrees above normal with a record high average for January. The rain down here at sealevel has skunked me a few times for trips to go photograph the snow geese and bald eagles on the Skagit river delta and up the river. The week we had excellent weather for it, my van was in the shop having it's transmission rebuilt. There does appear to be another break in the weather coming starting tomorrow so hopefully I'll be driving up there tomorrow.

I've heard that the SW deserts will be good for wildflowers and I do have a trip planned to go south but I'm afraid that going the middle of April might be too late. I should be down there mid to late March instead but have an obligation here in April. (I hate it when I make plans because they always seem to end up conflicting with what's going on otherwise.
Peace

[n6vfp.livejournal.com]

For your wildflower trip here is a link to wildflower info...

http://www.theodorepayne.org/hotline/hotlinelinks.html

[edbook.livejournal.com]

Thanks Alan, I'll add it to my list. There's another that tells which flowers are currently blooming and has a good identification section that I relied on heavily on my last trip. These sites take away the crapshoot of just going and hoping.

Peace

[n6vfp.livejournal.com]

Here is a link for identification...of California wild flowers.

http://research.calacademy.org/redirect?url=http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/botany/wildflow/index.html

[edbook.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll add that one too. Here's the one I mentioned earlier. It has reports updated by viewers in the field: http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/wildupdates.html

Peace