it just keeps dumping

folks, i've lived in ski towns before. a year in crested butte at the tender age of 20 (booze, bonfires and 80 days that season), a year in aspen after i finished my undergrad (3 smelly boys in a shitty 1 BR basement apartment that has since been condemned to make room for more ridiculous hollywood homes), a year in jackson after i finished grad school (a great library and jackson's worst snow year in a decade)...

but i'm here to tell you that i have never seen this much snow.

ever.

some stats and anecdotes to give you an idea of the magnitude:

-the ski area measures its snow in inches at its midmountain gondola station. as of today, we have received 298 inches. that's almost 25 feet of snow.

-to put that in perspective, the mountain's season average is 377 inches. the season runs through the second week of april. we have already received almost 80 percent of our snowfall total and it's still january. traditionally, the heaviest snow months in colorado's high country are march and april.

-i've been snowboarding 12 days this year. 9 of them have been powder days. 3 of those powder days have been incredible - 24 inches, 18 inches, and 12 inches respectively.

-there's almost 5 feet of compacted snow in our condo's front yard. the pile in front of our door that has resulted from shoveling our porch and walkways is over 7 feet tall.

-monthly snow totals: 15" in october, 83" in november, 105" in december, 95" in january.

-snowpack for the yampa and white river basins is 124% of average.

-the town is running out of places to put plowed snow. seriously. they're trucking it out of city limits in dump trucks and putting it in open fields.

-guess what folks? it's snowing again. 3 inches overnight. 4-7 more inches by midday.

i've worn my garmont backpacking boots every day since november except for a few here and there. i've cleared so much snow off of the cars this winter that i have developed a system for doing it (thank you OCD). the river remains frozen over in all but a few places. marley and sadie have developed packed game trails through the yard, and can only poop when they're on a trail. they don't even bother getting into the yard for peeing, but instead just go on the snowpacked sidewalk or parking lot.

truly, this is pretty incredible.

link o' the day:

geno sent me this link.
it most certainly does not stink.
it helps you find rhymes
when you have some spare time.
and you might really like it i think.