like running over a giant field of Styrofoam packing peanuts. It was different than the slushing noise warmer snow makes. The squeak mixed with a satisfying crunch as the snow was compacted. The tracks Mia and I left were the only signs of outdoor life. Every other living thing sought shelter. The running was hard and slow as I literally had to high-step every time I moved forward so my feet would clear the deep snow holes my weight created. It’s inefficient and tiring but all my exertions definitely gave me a solid workout despite my slower speed. Mia, on the other hand, showed that she is a naturalborn snow dog. She bounded effortlessly over the frozen landscape and loved for me to throw snowballs at her. The snowballs were soft and fluffy rather than the hard, icy kind found in warmer snow. Mia would snap at them and they would dissolve into a spray of ice that scattered all over her. She would then leap into the air in a self-satisfied celebration after each snowball was vanquished by her powerful maw. She never tired of the game and would look at me periodically to see if it was time for another snowball fight. When we were on a trail, I let her run a while off leash since there was almost no one else around. She would plow into deep banks of snow whenever possible with a satisfying crunch. She reminded me of a small child with her boundless enthusiasm. I often laughed so hard at her antics that I had to stop running just to catch my breath between chuckles. My favorite thing to do was to run through the virgin snowpack and look back at our lonely tracks trodding over my best guess of the position of the underlying trail. Sometimes I was way off, as I would learn days later when the snow finally receded. At the time, however, mine became the trail that would be followed by everyone who came after, since no one else
had any better idea of where the trail should actually be. A few of these blissful days saw more snowfall between my runs. The newly laid snow would bury my old tracks and allow me the pleasure of reestablishing my virgin trail. I would intentionally make it different than before, and sure enough others who came later still mostly followed in my footsteps, literally. I guess it was the path of least resistance for them. There was endless potential for every cliché allegory I know. Don’t worry, I’ll spare you. All good things eventually come to an end. The moisture eventually passed on, but in its wake the tropical warm front had driven the powerful vortex all the way back into the arctic, which is where it belongs after all. The sun shown brightly, and for one brief day it was snowy and relatively warm at the same time. The trails that had been mostly my own were now packed with those who had spent days cooped up in their homes. Snowmen were born next to snow angels. Children chased each other across still icy streets and old men introduced the young to the joys of sledding. It was fun to see life return to the outdoors and the joy on peoples faces. It’s hard to be anything but cheerful on such a glorious day, and many people warmly greeted Mia and me as we slogged through the snowy remnants. It felt a lot like Christmas morning, the day Ebenezer Scrooge was reborn after a night spent with the dead. I had faced my own ghosts in the ice, the cold and the snow all in their own turn, so it felt like a new day. The sunshine filled the world with the potential of better days to come. Spring would arrive shortly and everything around me had been washed clean by the trials of winter’s strongest days. And so had I. For the first time in a long time, I felt warm inside.
I had faced my own ghosts in the ice ...
Serious snowfall
record, which occurred at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in California from Feb. 13 to 19 in 1959. At 15.75 feet, the snowfall there was a record from a single storm system. Mount Shasta is a volcano in the Cascade Mountain Range and rises as high as 14,160 feet. Besides the 1892 snow dump on Memphis, the city has experienced some other significant snowfall totals, notably 17.3 inches from heavy snow March 21 and 23 and 14.3 on Dec. 22, 1968.
The snowfall Rob Rayder wrote about occurred on Feb.18 this year.The Memphis International Airport reported 7.2 inches of snow that day, but the total was quickly revised down to 5.17 inches. The record snowfall in Memphis – 18 inches – happened on March 17, 1892, no doubt interrupting many a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. 18 inches is a lot of snow, of course, but it doesn’t come close to the U.S. 24
