I went out into the deep new snow yesterday and shot quite a few frames. I love how my wide angle captured this scene. Since the temperatures were in the high 20’s, the snow hadn’t started falling off the trees yet. This piece of land appears to be Forest Service but, the local water entity seems to be using it on a special use permit. This is clearly within the WUI but, very little has been done in the last 11 years I have lived here. About 6 years ago, they brought a convict crew in to do some hand piling. The land still remains highly flammable, with ample, oily bear clover (aka mountain misery) ready to burn. They just don’t do broadcast burning around here, despite how easy it is to burn off the bear clover.
People get so surprised when we have snow during spring. The biggest storm period I have ever seen was in the first week of April, 1982. The snow was so deep, it was ABOVE the chairlift cables at Squaw Valley’s Headwall lift. They had to cut a notch in the snow, so the chairlift could run. I’ve seen fresh snow during every month of the year. Back in July 1987, a 10,000 acre wildfire I was on was put out by 4 inches of new snow. We had the biggest snowball fight I’ve ever seen, in fire camp, while everyone was waiting to be “de-mob-ed”.