Happy Snow

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While the East coast is getting hit with repeated snow storms, Arizona is getting left out of the action.  Now I know most people don’t think of AZ as getting snow… but for Northern Arizona it is part of our seasons, and one we count on to get precipitation to keep our trees healthy and our forests free from wildfires.  For a  normal winter (October – March, or so) we would expect to see maybe 6′ – 10′ of snow.  While that may not be a lot for some Eastern states, it’s about right for us.  Thus far this winter, we have seen none.

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That is until this past weekend.  I’m happy to report we finally got some snow!  Woohoo.  We probably got about 8″ at our home.  Having been house bound, we opted to go to the rim to check out their snow and maybe get some pix.

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The rim probably got around a foot of snow.  It was beautiful.

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There is something special about new fallen fresh snow, clinging to the trees and their trunks.  It is a magical sight.  I never used to like snow – too cold.  But I have developed an appreciation for it’s beauty.

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… and it always tends to bring out the animals.  We were lucky to see a number of elk – all of whom where quite surprised to see our Jeep slogging through the deep snow.

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Snow Trees

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The Forest Service seems to close the roads the minute we get snow… and keep them closed until Spring.  So we jumped into action immediately after our first snow storm, and went directly to the Mogollon Rim to see if we could capture the Rim in snow.  Unfortunately, the fog rolled in, and the view over the rim was a complete whiteout.  Check out my First Snow pix on kritterspaw.com.

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What do they say… one closed door leads to another open door.  In my case fog lead to some very cool Snow Trees with the last remnants of fall color on pristine snow in an eery fog.  It reminded my of an enchanted forest.

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