I think my dog gets cabin fever too…

My dog Sidney happily took me for a walk yesterday. She knew she needed to help me deal with my cabin fever, an annual late winter mental health struggle of mine. This inevitable fever particularly sets in during big snow years, which this winter certainly has been.

My snowshoes, tired of the long winter, have officially submitted a request for extended vacation. I won’t approve the request just yet because it’s only late February. There’s still several weeks of potential snowshoeing across Wyoming’s public lands.

My feet yearn for walking on hard ground. My hiking boots bark at me every so often to dig them out of the closet and take them for a walk. Soon I tell them…soon!

Even Sidney hints she’s getting tired of post-holing in deep snow. Tired of burying herself head first and chest deep into a soft drift while chasing the ever elusive cottontail rabbit.

So we drove through parts of the northern Bighorn Basin until we found some snow-free ground. We noted lower elevations – those in the 3,000 to 5,000 foot zone – are beginning to show signs of spring. What were large expanses of complete snow-covered terrain a few weeks ago are now patches of white. The various colors of the Basin’s sedimentary geology are reappearing in between.

Ephemeral washes are flowing water the color of chocolate milk. Herds of pronghorn are patiently stirring in the muddy, snow-free areas. They too seem antsy to once again roam Wyoming’s large expanses of open prairie.

Next up will be the mid-elevations…

Over the next several weeks the mid-elevations of the basin, those lands in the 5,000 to 7,000 foot zone, will also start to melt out. This will greatly expand the amount of snow-free area Sidney and I can romp over. Patience grasshopper I tell her…patience….

As this annual event unfolds big game migration back to summer range will begin. Deer and elk will leave their winter range in the lower elevations and start their seasonal ascent to the high-country. The high country of Wyoming’s Water Towers.

Grizzly bears will awake from their hibernation slumber and follow the does and cows up the hill as they give birth to their fawns and calves. Wolves will step alongside the bears and join the march as well.

The grasses will turn green and the wildflowers will protrude from the wet soil and show off their stuff in the grandest of fashion.

Sidney and I will be gradually getting over our cabin fever. But it won’t be complete until we can once again trek across the alpine, the highest elevation zones of the water towers. Again I say patience grasshopper…patience…

Then finally the high country will start to melt out…

Around April 1st, the deep snow pack of the high country, those lands in the 7,000 to 13,000 foot zone, will start to melt. Finally.

As the snow melts, streams will begin to rise in what is called, in the parlance of hydrology, “the spring runoff period”. The snow melt and stream rise begins gradually, then accelerates until peak runoff. Peak runoff typically occurs in late May to early June in the latitudes of Wyoming.

April and May are typically the wettest months in Wyoming’s Water Towers. So during the few short months of the spring runoff period a few to several wet spring snow storms will journey across the high country. New snow will be dropped, adding more water to the snowpack. The associated cold fronts will slow down, for a few days anyway, the melting of the snow that has accumulated since last October. Then, as the colder air is replaced by warmer air, the snow melt will ramp up until the next cold front moves in.

By late July the snow melt period will be over and stream flow will drop back down to base flow levels until spring runoff next year.

My cabin fever, and Sidney’s, will slowly wane as the high country melts out. By the time streams have dropped back down to base flow levels the fever will be a thing of the past. At lease until late next winter, when I am certain it will return.

Annual snow pack is a natural reservoir…

This annual journey of building snow pack throughout the winter and spring and then slowly melting it through the spring and summer is a critical part of the water cycle and our reliance on it. Think of the high country snow pack as nothing more than a natural reservoir of stored water. Water falls from the sky to the ground as a solid, filling up the Water Towers with deep snow. In some winters, like this year, there is 10 to 30 inches of liquid water equivalent in those towers. Multiply that by millions of acres of land covered in snow.

Then visualize how many acre-feet of water are being stored. Acre-feet of frozen water, waiting for gradual melt and release by Mother Nature to satisfy a myriad of human uses both within and downstream of these water towers.An ecosystem service that is invaluable. Yet, interestingly enough, an ecosystem service whose value seems to defy definition, as so eloquently explained in Pete Bengeyfield’s guest blog.

Until the next time…take care…get out and enjoy YOUR public lands as the weather permits…and if the weather isn’t conducive for a day or two, drop me a comment on my blogs…or write your local congressional and express your views of public lands and the public lands debate.

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