In Paths of Snowmobiles

Two inches fell in the night, and I hear the rumble of snowplows in pre-dawn. They don’t have much snow to remove, so they make a lot of noise doing it. I still fail to agree with snow removal unless there is enough of it to keep cars from moving. But when only two inches fall, how is that reason for the plows to spring into action as if the town were on fire? The country roads, where plows have never gone this winter, seem just as fine for driving as the bare streets. I think the unplowed roads are safer because you know they are slippery and don’t have to wonder where the icy places are.





The city is not alone in fastidious snow removal. Larry shoveled his driveway and walk before coming to Sandy’s this morning. And Jerry has already got Russell here with his pickup-mounted plow to clear the parking lot. “Stop!” I want to scream from my deck. “You have done this all you lives, and you have not even thought about what you are doing!”






The warmer temperature allows the chemical that they mix with sand and flail from the backs of trucks to actually melt snow. When they spread the same mix after the last snow at minus ten degrees, there was no melting. Now we have slush, water, sandy mud and packed snow, all in different places on the road.








But soon I had finished breakfast at Sandy’s, finished holding my tongue about snowplows, and was off for Ranier via a new route to the east. It seems that everyone went to their garages, sheds, tarps and storage units this weekend and tuned up their snowmobiles. Tracks head out of town on every trace of a trail, and the trails cross and circle, leaving a new person, who might be looking for a new way to get somewhere, in a quandary. I have a compass but don’t need it, except under thick clouds. I follow the sun like a plant. Even at noon, it’s far down from overhead and hovering low in the south. So keeping the sun to my right in a general way, I follow the tracks, where the going is easier after they mash down the snow.






Today, the noon shadows are longer than on any other day. I say this with solstice certainty because historical repetitions act this winter as they always have, and it’s fair to say that such predictions are based on “laws.” But maybe it’s a religious belief. I’m surprised at how long the shadows are up here in borderland, compared to Southern California. I took these pictures within an hour of noon.






This picture is looking south into a cloud that hides the sun, so low it’s just above the trees. The other is my shadow, so long it seems like early morning or late afternoon.











Snowmobiles leave the land in this picture and go out onto the lake. I follow them, walking on water.













Tree shadows on thin ice.