Treat It With Respect

Cold.  Bitter, arctic cold.  The kind of cold that isn't stopped by winter clothing.  The kind of cold that kills, quickly and impersonally.  Get your timing wrong with the elements, these elements, and serious trouble becomes your reality.  The temps plummet, the winds howl, and a landscape that appears reasonably tame becomes very, very hostile.

Mono County Sheriff Search and Rescue Report January 9/10, 2010

A Mono County resident has been found deceased after what appears to be an ill-fated attempt to reach his remote home at Sagehen Meadows.  Mono Sheriff Officials report that the SAR team responded to the Sagehen Summit to look for 60-year-old Robert Lane.  Lane lived alone off of Highway 120 East near Sagehen Summit.  During the winter the highway is closed off and Sheriff officials say that the home is only accessible by snowmobile.  Sheriff Officials say that the search team found Lane's unoccupied vehicle stuck in a snowdrift on 120 near Big Sand Flat.  The two searchers made it to the man's house, but Lane wasn't there either.  On Sunday morning the SAR team and Mono deputies set out on snowmobiles and in the county snowcat to begin search for the missing man.  At about noon, searchers found Lane lying in the snow about a mile from his vehicle.  The cause of death remains under investigation.

Monday, January 13, 2012

There's a cold weather front pouring into this low pressure.  It's 22 degrees outside.  Through the window I see spindrift blowing horizontally across the open plateau of the front yard.  There are few obstacles to slow the gale sweeping up out of the Adobe Valley.  I head down the steps with my shoulder tipped to the wind.  It feels raw outside.  But under a heavy, felt cowboy hat and full-head balaclava, and wrapped in a 200-weight fleece top, synthetic down sweater and Filson duster, I'm reasonably warm.   Longjohns under fleece-lined pants add what they can.   So out I walk, not quite sure to where.

I end up heading down the road and north through the burned forest into the deer bedding grounds.   It is much warmer here amongst the trees, and as I creep closer to where I often see large numbers of deer, the air grows still.  These third-generation Jeffery pines grow dense, with many small clearings between, each one carpeted in deep needle duff.  Snow flakes settle lazily to the soft forest floor.   It is an inviting spot, and one, I know, that often provides shelter to many deer.   Today, all is quiet.

Back out on the road, I start down again toward the west but stop and reconsider.  The first deep chills are getting a foothold through my layers, and the afternoon light is dimming fast beneath the storm cover.  I turn back, knowing the house is just a ten minute walk away.  Emerging from the forest onto the open plateau, I turn into the wind and up the driveway.  The cold, raw and bitter, hits hard, so I tip my head to drop the bill of my hat, shielding my face.  My gloved hands are stuffed deep into the duster.  The chills quickly grow into a rising tide of cold.   Shivering cold.  All-consuming cold.  It comes on surprisingly fast, just a few paces up my drive.  The wind stings my checks and forehead, and instantly freezes the moisture my covered nose exhales through the balaclava.   Even after making the turn in the driveway, the cold blast continues head-on.  I swim through this arctic fury toward the warm house just a minute away, thinking "What would it be like to be a mile or two out in this weather, in this place."

It would be desperate. 

                                       -gmm