Post 7

Well, I first of all, I apologize for not posting for such a long time.  I have no valid excuse.

Yesterday, unknowingly for me, was the end of an era.  Or, at least the season.  I have spent this whole summer working outside, enjoying the beautiful scenery, and the seemingly never-ending sunshine.  I have hiked hundreds of miles of trail over the past 6 months, seen most of the Tahoe National Forest, and experienced Tahoe living at its outdoorsy finest.  I have bombed class 3 rapids in an inflatable tube, climbed to peaks above 13,000 ft., explored ghost towns, caught wild trout that only live in the mountains, used hundred-year-old saws to clear wilderness areas, and so much more.  Needless to say, it has been an eventful and enriching season.

Last week was the epitome of a picturesque autumn: glazed sunshine that warms you, shadows that force a pull of the jacket tighter and colors that span the spectrum.  I know I have spoken about Aspens before (perhaps too much, as was conveyed by one reader), but I am going to speak on them again.  The trees that populate the Tahoe area seemed to take a hint from the cooling nights.  They could sense the dwindling power of the sun and decided to begin the process of conserving their energy.   The death of leaves of deciduous trees are an annual display of change that intersperse the landscape of green and brown with golden yellows, orange, and reds.  The change of the aspen is the autumnal mirror of the wildflower bloom of the spring.  Where the wildflowers dwell and flourish in dells, meadows and grassy slopes, the aspen are spread throughout the forest.  Roads become corridors of color and trails become paths lined with aspen paintbrushes along the sides.  My father often expounds that a man typically knows only about 10 colors.  I can vouch that I am decidedly void of the ability to definitively identify the shade that a single vein on a leaf can illustrate.  I am constantly reminded of how many colors there can be.  I think only those employees of paint and nail polish companies really understand the depth and matchlessness that an autumn can show. 

We had about a month of autumn this year, before today.  As I look out my window, I can see the flurries of snow falling onto the six inches that has already carpeted the ground.  This is the official start of winter in Tahoe and it is beautiful.  The only sadness that the snow brings is that it prevents any more work from being done in the field.  I have really appreciated the balance of field work and office work that this job has afforded me.  During the season, I barely felt as if I was working, but instead saw my job as a strenuous activity that I got paid for.  Who could complain about hiking in the woods, using tools, and talking with the public about the outdoors?  Don’t get me wrong, working in the office is fine too, but there is a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes from hard day working outside. 

I haven’t lived in a place that gets this much snow before.  Already this storm has shown me more of the cold stuff than I typically see in a year in my home town.  I’ll have to see if I get sick of it, but there are few things more magical to me than a forest covered in snow.