Blueberry Flowers

 

On Monday I went for a walk with the dogs in Abercrombie and found that the blueberries are finally blooming. This is another of those spring events that I note and it tells me if spring is early or not. Generally the blueberries first blossom in mid to late April, and they have bloomed as early as February and March. So this year they are late. Normally by this time the salmonberries are getting ready to bloom, but yesterday I checked on them too and they are even budding yet. So it is a late spring this year.  That said, it is a weird spring because on high we barely have any snow left. Yesterday when I went for a ski I could only go to the top of the jibber. Normally I am still skiing to almost the road. The first blueberry blossoms usually coincide with the max snow pack on the mountain. But this year the first blossoms are a month later than the Max snowpack on the mountain.

Patrick

Last days skiing to the road

 

I just looked through the blog posts for the last 3 Aprils to see how this year compares to springs past. Basically this year has been colder but with a lot less snow. Last year at this time the salmonberries were already blooming but the timing of last ski to the road was about the same - same for the year before. In 2023 there was a lot more snow than the last 3 years and we were skiing to the road until May.

This year it is hard to believe how quickly the snow is disappearing. A week ago I was still XC skiing up river canyons. Now there is barely enough snow at the pass to ski to the road, and it has been freezing at night and not raining either. The snow should be sticking around - BUT there is so little snow that there is not much of it to stick around. Around town there is a perception that this was a snowy winter - it wasn't. But it was cold so what snow we did get did not immediately melt but stuck around. So we had a thin cover of snow on the ground in town for most of the winter. But there was so little actual snow that I fear there will be no June skiing on Pyramid this year.

And around the house the ground in my garden beds is still frozen - no garlic sprouts - and while the crocuses have sprouted they have not bloomed. So basically my garden is a couple of weeks behind but we are losing our snowpack a lot earlier than usual. It may even be that we have already passed our max snow pack on the mountain and it happened like April 5th. But I'm still hoping that we get another dump of snow - fingers crossed but not very hopeful.

Patrick

The bottom image I found on the internet and it basically shows the snowpack for the state of Alaska on April 1rst. It looks like Kodiak is mostly at 25-50% of normal. That's pretty bad - we need snow to keep the rivers up for the salmon! I noticed that at 50% the middle of the island is doing better than the coast. I think that's because during the warm snap in late January and early February when we did get some warm rain in town and on Pyramid it actually snowed way up high in the middle of the island (like above 3000 feet).

Spring Skiing

 

It's officially Spring on the mountain. During the storm early last week we passed the point of 'max snowpack' on the mountain. For a couple more weeks we'll still get more snow on the top of the mountain, but it will not offset how much snow we're losing lower down on the mountain. 

Lately it has been freezing at night and then during the day it gets up into the mid to upper 40's. The frosts have kept the snowpack solid and the warm days just thaw out the top few inches for skiing.  Spring corn snow. Hero snow. Perfect spring skiing conditions. Probably the best skiing of the year.  But it is a little sad because it also means the ski season is coming to a close.  

It has been a low snow winter, and, despite the relatively cool spring, I fear that this year the skiing on Pyramid is going to end a little earlier than usual.

Still the skiing is good now!

Patrick

April Powder

 

This past weekend I was sick and it was warm and rainy.  We lost pretty much all our snow below 1200 feet.  It looked like we were past max snowpack, and I was a little depressed. And then Sunday night it cooled off and snowed.  I woke up to sunshine and snow in my yard. It changed my mood completely.

After work I climbed up the mountain with the dogs and found a powder stash in the North Bowl.  It was Heaven for me on skis but a little deep for the dogs - so I only did one run.

It stayed below freezing for most of the day, but I was amazed how quickly the sun still melted the snow.  There would be snow in the shadows and a sharp melt line where it met the sunshine.  At the pass looking south at the slopes facing north it looked all snowy, but looking towards the north and the south facing slopes it looked all brown.  It was kind of a cool optical effect.  

But up on high the sun did not melt the new snow! It is still winter up there.

Patrick

Nearing Peak Snow

 

This winter we just recently got any snow so it is hard to say when we will or have reached peak snow. What I call 'peak snow' is when Pyramid Mountain achieves the greatest snowpack.  Usually this happens sometime in late April. Last year it was April 16th (click here for post) and that was earlier than usual. Peak snow is actually later than when we lose snow at the bottom of the mountain - for a while we gain enough snow up high on the mountain to off set what we lose down low.  Up high Pyramid got a lot of snow in the last couple of weeks.  We actually got most of our snowpack since early March.  So I do not quite think we are at peak snow - yet.

That said, in the last few days we have lost a lot of snow low down on the mountain.  On Sunday it was easy to ski to the road.  Then in just 3 days we lost almost all of it - I fear that yesterday is the last time this year that I ski to the road. But, this year, we barely skied to the road until mid March anyway.

In any case, in town it is supposed to rain through the weekend. If we gain snow - or even moisture content - above 1200 feet then I feel we will still are gaining snow.  But if it rains to the top then I fear we will have reached max snowpack.

Patrick

Ryan and Bode

The chase pack

Snow to the road just a few days ago