Steady Snows Easing Drought?

By Bob Berwyn, 2-18-08

	Caption: A Colorado aspen grove rests quietly under a mid-winter mantle of snow. Photo by Bob Berwyn. Check out more of his landscape and nature pics at his Imagekind gallery.

Along with pleasing skiers and snowboarders, Colorado’s wet winter may help ease dry conditions in the Upper Colorado River Basin, the Glenwood Springs Post Independent reported recently. After dire-sounding predictions for a dry La Niña winter, Mother Nature turned the tables and has delivered plentiful snow. Ranchers and farmers on the West Slope are looking hopefully toward the irrigation season, feeling confident about water supplies.Snowpack levels across most of the state are about 120 percent of normal, which doesn’t sound like a huge bonus. But some newspaper reports have been suggesting this wet winter (if it continues) could be a “drought-buster.” I can’t say for sure if that’s true, and I know that, by some standardized measures, at least parts of the Colorado River Basin have been experiencing mild drought conditions during recent years.

The way the story is being reported shows the problem with the fundamental mindset of people living in an arid region. Rather than accepting the fact that dry and wet winters come and go in cycles, the prevailing attitude is that it’s a “drought” when there’s not enough water to go around. That way, it’s easy to point a finger at the sky and put the blame somewhere besides our own wasteful and overly consumptive habits. IThis way of thinking supports the mentality that we can engineer and/or manage our way out of dry conditions by juggling water uses and building more reservoirs. That’s scary for me, because it creates an even greater dependence on an already over-extended supply. New storage might be a good thing, but only if there’s enough water to fill it. And that, in the age of global warming, is a questionable call.

The big snows have apparently lured some lurkers out of their easy chairs and on to the slopes at Aspen, where season-pass use is sky-high, according to the Aspen Times.

Ski pass use was down 20 percent from last year through Dec. 20, during the dry early winter. But with 38 powder days in late December and January, local pass holders came out of the woodwork. As of Feb. 10, season pass use had inched ahead of last year’s according to the Times.

The Times also reported on a new iPhone ad that features Aspen, a town that obviously likes to toot its own horn. In the spot, an iPhone user puts the electronic gadget through a workout, pulling up a trail map and dining guide via the internet. Woo-hoo, but I think I like living in the relative anonymity of Dillon.

And more lynx appear to be using the Tenmile Range around Breckenridge, the Summit Daily News reported a few days ago. A group of backcountry skiers spotted one of the rare cats near Francie’s Cabin, a backcountry shelter a few miles south of town. A couple of weeks later, a group of Canadian skiers spotted a lynx sitting near a trail at Breckenridge Ski Area.

State wildlife biologists said it appears that the threatened powder cats are using the area more frequently, and they’re not surprised. The area between Summit County and Vail includes some of the best historic lynx habitat in the state. As the population of introduced lynx grows, it’s not surprising that the cats are seeking out what was some of the best historic habitat in Colorado.