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Well, the digging out is just about done. I believe all roads have been opened up and most folks have been able to get their driveways and walkways shoveled out. Most of that happened by about mid week and life got back to normal.

I have to admit, I was totally in the dark as to magnitude of the storm though. Last week as I was typing the journal entry, the heavier snows were soon to let up, but the winds were just starting to get going in earnest. We did have winds of around 25-30 mph with some higher gusts when I was writing last week, but then they shot up to be sustained at 45 mph, with gusts to 68 mph at the airport. The gusts at Stannard Rock out in Lake Superior were regularly exceeding hurricane force and were topping out at around 78-79 mph.

Not long after finishing last weeks entry, I went out to clear snow and this was what I was met with as I stepped out the door. Lots of snow and lots of wind! After firing up Big Red, I headed down to the neighbors to clear them out first. As I was headed down, I knew I was going to be meeting quite a challenge for Big Red, but I also knew that it would be fully up to the challenge. What I wondered was, how many more time would I need to do clean up work from this particular storm?

The drive down to the neighbors was not too bad and although their driveway had well over a foot of snow on it, Big Red was up to the task and did great work clearing the snow. As I was finishing up the driveway, I noticed how tall the banks were. The tractor tosses the snow well into the woods, so this is a good representation of how deep the snow is on the level up here. I also keep a path cleared out to their propane tank so the person that comes to fill it does not have to wade through the deep snow to reach it. Here is a picture of Big Red in the clearing to the propane tank. Keep in mind that there is probably a good 8-10″ of snow that the tractor is sitting on, as I do not clean the snow to the bare ground each time I go in there to clear.

I finished up that driveway and then headed back and took care of our own. I figured that even though the winds were starting to blow at 50 mph+ and would keep up like that for much of the night, it would still help to get the driveways cleaned Sunday night so that Monday’s clearing would not be an all day affair. I did not go over to the rink, figuring it was much more exposed to the winds and drifting and could very well look like nothing had been done by Monday, even if it cleared all the snow off Sunday evening.

Schools were already canceled for Monday by the time I got back in from clearing the snow Sunday evening. So I got myself tucked into bed and the girls stayed up later, as they could sleep in the next day.

By the time I awoke on Monday, the worst of the winds had died off, but it was still blowing pretty good. The snow falling was a pretty light variety, so I decided that I would head out to clear after I was done with my morning work, rather than wait it out any longer. With the exception of the 2-3 foot plow banks, the driveways were not too bad. Around 8-10″ of snow on them, but that is something Big Red can handle even at full speed in second gear. When I got to the rink, it was a different story.

Had it not been for the sliver of the tops of the boards still showing and the light poles, one would have never even known there was an ice rink in there! In some cases, the snow had drifted higher than the boards and was about 4-5 feet deeper than the tops of the boards. It really was a sight to behold, but I was not worried at all about being able to get it done, just wondering how long it would take!

When the snow gets to be around 2-3 feet deep or deeper, I do not take a full pass through it. I will have around 35-65% of the blower chewing into the snow, that way I can keep moving and do not have to keep backing up and then building up a head of momentum, only to come to a halt because of loss of traction. I can’t remember how long it took to clear the rink, but it was not as long as I thought it might. It was quite a bit of fun too. I had headphones on and listened to tunes in the heated cab and just took it one slice at a time. I forgot to take a picture of the rink when I was all finished, but I sure felt happy to have been able to help out and gave Big Red an extra sip of diesel fuel additive when we got back for a job so well done!

A little later in the day, I headed to Calumet to pick up a few things and by that time, the winds had calmed down enough and the snow had pretty much stopped. Our road was in good shape. A bit narrower than it typically is, but still plenty wide for 2 way traffic. The main highway was also in pretty good shape. Again, narrower, with the shoulders still full of snow, but fully passable. Calumet was still in the midst of moving snow around, but they had seemed to get a pretty good handle on things and looked like in another day or so, they would have all of their snow cleaned up. So with all I had seen, I knew it has been one heck of a storm, but that the region was not paralyzed, even just a few hour after it had let up.

Then that evening came the news that schools would be canceled for another day and social media started filling up with pictures of the impacts the snow had brought to the area and my impression of the storm changed with each new photo I looked at. In a way it reminded me of the Fathers Day Flood we had last June. We had only gotten around 2.5″ of rain and absolutely no flooding or issues. Yet, just miles away, it was a completely different story. Complete destruction of roads and some houses. Entire hillsides washed out. The snowmobile/ATV trail between Dollar Bay and Lake Linden had 100 foot deep and 300-400 foot wide washouts on it in many spots.

The difference was that while the snow and winds had caused complete isolation for some, there was no damage. A mess to clean up, but no loss of life or property. Still a full blown epic event though. Even for a place that does not get to rattled by big snows.

Note; the next round of pictures of the storm were taken from social media. I did try and get permission from as many of the owners of the photos, but did not get all, so if you see one of your photos in here and would like it removed, please let me know. – John

The state and local agencies that take care of the snow have a priority list for plowing. I have not seen it, so I can only guess as to how the hierarchy works, but it is pretty clear that the main arteries are the first to be taken care of. At the same time, any side roads that lead to emergency services are opened up. Then roads to main business areas and schools. Then comes the big task of taking care of all the secondary roads. So while traffic was flowing nicely through downtown Houghton, the sidewalks were still clogged with chest deep snow. Same thing in Calumet. Many of these pictures remind me of the old photographs from the 20’s and 30’s of the snow being piled up on the roadways in the cities because they did not have the resources to haul it away. With that in mind, I thought it would be neat to try and digitally change one of the photos to make it look like it was from the “old” days. The funny thing is, some day it will be from the Old Days!

I did come across a picture of them clearing the snow off of main street in Calumet…by hand in some cases!

It seemed like anywhere the wind could move snow to, it did. Areas between buildings were filled in and in some cases to a depth of 12’+. That last shot was from the mall. Here is a shot of the Denali restaurant in Lake Linden from the outside. Here is a shot from the inside! We had dinner there last night and not only was the route to/from the entry door cleared, but enough snow was also cleared from the windows to give a bit of a view.

Here is a shot of the employee entrance to one of the banks up here. No worries for a robbery through that door! A stroll down one of the side streets in Calumet and Laurium would have given you quiet the workout, but also would have given you eye popping sights like this.

Getting back to the mall area, here is a spit image of what things were like in two different spots inside the mall. I am not sure how the person that took those previous shots got in, but it was not through this entry! At least not until it looked like this.

As impressive as the scenes from the urban areas were, it was the rural areas that were even more exposed to the hurricane force winds and all the blowing and drifting of the snow. Not only did folks have to deal with cleaning up their own property, but in some cases had to wait until Wednesday for the road they lived on to get opened up. Worse yet, some saunas were locked tight in snow for several days! The snow up in Lac La Belle is getting so deep, that there is no longer a place to put it if you have to shovel a roof.

One might wonder a bit why, in an area where we get so much snow every year, did it take three days for some roads to be opened up. Well, that is because out in the country, the banks on each side of the road were already at least 6 feet tall. With the 20-30″ of snow that fell and the 50-75 mph winds, all of that fresh snow completely filled in sections of the roads with 6 feet+ snow. In this shot, the drifts were actually closer to 10 feet.

With that kind of snow to move, even the big guns the county has in its arsenal to remove it got it handed to them. There were more than one picture of stuck plows out on the country roads. One might then ask: “What do they do when a plow truck gets stuck?”. They pull out all the stops and send the snow-go. Here is a shot of one of those monsters at work. It is basically a diesel powered 6 foot tall and 6 foot wide snow thrower mounted to the front of an end loader. If they cannot make it through, nothing can!

Here is a shot of the Bootjack Road south of Lake Linden. I can confirm that it was fully open on Friday, as we took a trip down it and all was back to normal.

Up in Copper Harbor, the winds also blew with fury. So much so that friend of ours and their neighbor spent several days just getting their driveway opened up. I can’t even imagine having to tackle something like this with Big Red! To make matters worse, you have to remember exactly where you parked the car so you do not grind it up while moving snow.

The rest of the shots were all taken by myself or Nora. This one is of a building behind the Calumet schools. The top of the roof is around 18 feet and they were busy shoveling the roof off onto a drift that was nearly as high as the roof itself!

Friday evening was the start of the CopperDog 150 dogsled race. They use the snowmobile trails and it nearly came down to the wire to get all of our system opened up in time for the weekend users as well as the teams of dogs/mushers. Nora’s brother and his wife came up to visit and take in the races. We bundled up and headed to Calumet to take in the start. After watching around 6-8 teams go through the starting gate, we jumped into the car and headed down to Lake Linden to watch them cross the Bootjack Rd in a slightly less urban setting. After a few teams went by, we then headed out into the sticks to where we manned a crossing on one of the country roads to see the race from the full rural perspective.

On Saturday, we headed to Copper Harbor to watch the teams come into town and finish the second leg of the three leg race. I have never seen the teams come in and finish a leg or the race, so that was a first time experience for me too! On the way up to the harbor, it was a real experience driving through “the tunnel”. That is the section of Hwy 41 between Delaware and Lake Medora. The banks of snow on either side of the highway were higher than I have ever seen and may ever see again! They were at least 8-10 feet tall and I have no idea how the plow operators can even pull that off! Most of that stretch of Hwy 41 has no shoulder at all, yet they are able to keep the road fully open! When we got to Lake Medora, the highway is fully exposed to the winds that blew Sunday and Monday, so the banks were even higher and had been cut back by a snow-go. You could not even see the lake or the camp sitting on it on the left hand side of the highway.

On the way home, we took highway 26 through Eagle Harbor and Eagle River. That stretch of road was closed for most of Sunday and Monday due to the extreme blowing and drifting of snow, but by Saturday was fully open and a treat to ride on. The big lake is largely frozen now, so we did not find any open water, but the ice mountains created earlier in the season when the water was open and crashing into the shore ice and the drifted snow sure made for some cool scenes to observe.

When we got to Cat Harbor and the road was fully exposed to the wrath of the storm. I got out of the car so Nora could take a picture of me standing next to the bank of snow the snow-go had carved through in order to open up the road. Imagine having to travel for a mile or so with the snow-go eating through the 8 foot deep snow on the level and wondering if you are even still on the road!

Down by the shoreline is where the deer yard up for the winter. The snow is typically not as deep there and they can get around and forage more easily. That is not the case anymore this season, as the snow is as deep or deeper in the yards than it typically is in the deep snow regions of the high country where they came from. Fortunately for some, there are several individuals and organizations that will give the deer some supplemental feed to help them get through the winter. These guys and gals all seemed to be pretty healthy looking and I wish I could have told them that it was March 2nd and soon spring weather will be here. Actually, I have a feeling they already can sense that.

Once home from our trip to the harbor, Gracie thought it would be a good idea to head up onto the shop roof and show the trolls (persons that live below the Mac Bridge) how a Yooper plays in the snow.

So where do I stand with all of this? In snow obviously! but John Dee is not sick of snow yet. I would be fine if we did not get any more and even started to slowly melt it off. Not because I am fully ready for winter to end, but because I really do feel for the folks that are not fortunate enough to have the resources I have to deal with it. I still have plenty more room to put it and the means to do so. For many others, they are out of room. I am not sure what they will be doing if we get a bunch more because many do not have the means to have it moved. The forecast does look rather ominous for later next weekend, as another fairly sizable storm is indicated to arrive late Saturday and continue into Sunday and perhaps bring a foot or more of snow. The winds do not look to be as bad, but could be an issue too. We shall see I guess! Perhaps the army of volunteers that helped out the victims of the flooding in June will re-form and tackle clearing snow for those who have tapped out.

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

It’s official, we are snowed in at the moment. I suppose if it were an emergency, we could get out and around, but the officials are asking everyone to stay off the roads, as we have picked up around 12-13″ of snow in the past 12 hours and winds are blowing at 30-35 mph, with gusts to 45. The snows are suppose to keep up at a pretty decent clip right on through the evening and winds are suppose to get stronger, with sustained winds of 35-40, gusting to 55 to 60 mph.

I’d love to show you a picture of how things are out there, but with officials asking that we stay in and the fact that the snow is piled up past the windows, the best I can do is this. That is the “snow chair”. Now more appropriately named than ever! Not all of the windows are that snowed in, the ones in the dining room have a bit of a hint of light. The kitchen windows sit underneath the overhang of the cabin roof, so the view is nearly unobstructed there. The bump off in the distance is part of the swing set, which is now completely buried under the snow.

Needless to say we will be staying white for some time. Not only in the 50″+ of snow on the level as deep as I have seen it in some time, but the fact that the snow is also very dense will cause it to stick around for a while. There is a growing concern for flooding once the melt arrives in earnest in a month or so. I measured just shy of 6″ of moisture in our snowpack on Monday, but we have picked up around 30″ of new snow since then. So it is probably up around 7-8″ of moisture.

For as much snow as we have and have gotten, we still have some nice, quiet periods. We even saw the sun pop its face out of the clouds on a couple of occasions this past week. The suns energy and the time it spends above the horizon are both becoming much more noticeable and on the days when it is not snowing at the rate of 1-2″ per hour with 45 mph winds, it actually feels like spring is drawing near. Just not today!

The mounds of snow are growing everywhere. The snow I shoveled off the roof of the lean-to allowed Gracie to do some exploring of the shop roof the other day. After looking on for a brief moment, Bleau decided it looked like fun and joined her. Grace and I are slowly working on a sled run that will take her from the top of the shop roof, to the eave, then onto the snow pile and then to the ground. Ending in a yet to be realized spot in the woods! Probably not a lot of kids that can say they have had that kind of a sled run.

I tripled the amount of snowmobiling I have done for the season this past weekend. Friends arrived up here Friday morning and we headed out for the rest of the day and rode. Conditions were very nice. The 10-11″ of fresh snow Wednesday night and Thursday morning had settled some, but still did a good job of covering up most of the tracks from the previous weekend and allowed us to steer the sleds with body weight and not the skis.

It’s deep out there. I did not take any measurements while out riding, but easily 5-6 feet plus in spots. About the only way to tell the actual depth of the snow is to be at a place where there is still bare ground showing, or in this case, a creek still flowing. It’s kind of hard to tell how deep the snow is there, but if I could have convinced one of my riding companions to go stand in the creek, the snow would have been over their heads.

As the afternoon wore on, the clouds departed and left us in blue skies for the remainder of the ride. If it is not snowing, then I would prefer it to be sunny out. All the little nuances in the terrain show up and thus I am not surprised by a bump or dip in the snow that I could not see with the flat light. The other nice thing is I can use the sun for navigation. In the case of Friday evening, all we had to do was keep heading towards the sun and we would find home!

Saturday morning was a bit of a relaxing one, with a nice breakfast and then we all got suited up to ride. Gracie was really wanting us to take a little ride with her before we left, so I got her sled out of the shop for the first time this season and tried to start it. After many attempts by several of us, we were able to get it started, but it did not run very well at all. So one of our guests is a mechanic and offered to pull the carburetor off and clean it up. That being done, Grace was off to ride. Things were going pretty good, until she had to climb up of the driveway and into the deep snow of the woods. We had made a path for her, but that little 120 just did not have the gusto to take her all the way. Next year there is an excellent chance that she will be on a new sled. As much as I would like to get her onto a full sized adult sled, I think the 200’s from Arctic Cat and Yamaha will be the best size for her. For the rest of this season I think the 120 will be enough.

After giving Grace some time in the saddle, we all headed out for the rest of the day for a ride of our own. We went a slightly different direction from the day before, but still found great riding. The trails we were on were nice and flat and the fields full of powder.

I was a little sore after Friday’s ride an a lot more after Saturday’s ride, but really had a good time riding. The conditions were nearly optimal and the riding partners fun. It re-assured me that even though I have not been riding as much in the past few years as I used to, it is still a very fun activity for me and not one I have any intention of walking away from. In fact, if Grace keeps her bug for riding, then I can see us heading out pretty regularly in the future.

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up! 97″ of snow in the past 4 weeks. I have always wanted to live through a record setting snow year up here, in a unique way, I think I already have…kind of, sorta. You see, to have a record year, we cannot have much of a low period. 400″ of snow does not just fall in a few days. It needs to snow full speed ahead from mid-November through March and even into April. While I have not spent a winter up here like that, I have experienced extremely snowy Novembers, such as the one 4 years ago. 71.5″ fell. Just last winter, our December provided 113″ of snow. In the winter of ’00/’01, 105″ of snow fell in January and 72″ fell in March. This February is only a bit past half over, but already we have picked up 53″ of snow. February of last year provided 64″ and February of 2006 brought just shy of 70″.

I’ll stop here, because I think you get my point by now. But add those months from separate years together and it would be 425.5″. A new record and that is not even counting what might have fallen in October, April and May! So I can imagine what each month must have been like and perhaps even a two month span, but I can’t fully grasp what it would like to have it snow like that month, after month, after month, after month…etc. Where would one put it all? I would not have too much of a problem with the driveway and parking area. Big Red tosses it far enough away that it would still be able to do that. But how about the roofs? I have room for one more clearing of the shop, another clearing or two of the house and that is it.

I doubt strongly that I will have to worry about those scenarios this year, but it does make one think!

So the week started out with things being a bit on the quiet side Monday. The pups and I took the opportunity to head out into the woods for a gander. We had not been out there for a while, so I figured we all were in need of some woods time and pay a brief visit to Old Granddad. So off into the woods we went. Huck and Millie sinking up to their bellies and Bleau using his built in snow shoes to sink in just a few inches! I’m not even sure he realizes how his huge paws keep him on top of the snow, but he certainly does not rub it in to the other two.

Walking through the woods, it was hard to realize that we were walking across 4 feet of snow. It’s clear that there are more than just a few inches down, but typically when you reach past the 3 foot mark, it all starts looking the same. That is until you start seeing many feet of snow sitting on top of objects that have not yet been buried. Here is a leaning dead fall with around 3-4 feet of snow on it. My favorite was the still standing, but long-dead white pine doing it’s imitation of a snowman.

The snows have been keeping me pretty busy clearing it. Between the rink, my neighbors and our driveway, I have been averaging around 2 hours a day in Big Red. I am still enjoying it, but would not having that time to do some other things as well! I typically do our drive first, then the neighbors and finish up with the rink. That takes me on a 2 mile loop through the neighborhood and one of my favorite periods of the entire clearing process is the trip home from the rink. It is down a very quiet country road and always looks to beautiful in the winter.

I have also been busy with a shovel this week. The snow on the woodshed REALLY needed to come off the downwind side, but my go-to guy was out of town. With it not being a very large area to clear, I decided to DIY. Things were moving along quite swimmingly. I had about 1/2 the roof cleared and was starting to tire a bit and that is when the shovel slipped out of my hand and went skidding down the roof to the ground below. Normally such an innocent thing would not be that big of a deal, but with my arms, legs and back already starting to feel the burn, the last thing I wanted to have to do is climb down the ladder, pick up the shovel and climb back up!

I toughed it out and finished up the one side of the roof. I was really glad when I finished and just as glad that it was done. The snow on the other side was not nearly as deep and will actually slide the first time we get above freezing. So not much worry there. The only thing left to do was move the snow that had been pushed off the roof and onto the ground. Big Red made easy work of that for me!

After an awesome massage and a few days rest, I spied the snow on the roof of the lean-to-where my precious Big Red is stored. It also looked to be getting too deep, so I hit it with a roof rake in hopes to moving the top two feet of snow off and make things safe again. Well, the top 2 feet came off without too much challenge from the snow rake, but the problem was, there was still around 3 feet of snow left! It was also not the light and fluffy kind, so I figured I better get up there and clear that snow off too!

So up the ladder I went, shovel in hand and got busy. It was deep. Even deeper than it looked from the ground. Its funny how that works. Just about every time I make my estimate of snow on a roof and then actually get up there, it is considerably deeper than it looked from below! Anyway, I dug and tossed, dug and tossed and stopped from time to time to rest. At one of my stopping intervals, I noticed the shovel leaning against the snow still on the roof. That was not even the deepest spot, nor was the shovel on the surface of the roof. There were a couple of inches of snow still on it!

A little while later, I did clean a spot all the way down to the bare roof and snapped a shot of it. It is hard to tell how deep it was without a reference object, but when I was standing on the roof, the top of the snow was up to the bottom of my chin. I am 6 foot 1 inch tall, so that was at least 5 feet of snow! The other thing that was cool about looking at the slab of snow (and this can also be seen in the photo) is the different layers in the slab. Each representing a snow storm or snow cycle in which it did not stop snowing for long enough to allow the snow surface to change. A couple of significant weak layers in there for all you avalanche hounds, but no avalanche terrain up here!

I did run out of steam and did not finish the lean-to, but will get back at it this week and I did remove enough snow to make things safe for Big Red. It has my back and I have its. Literally! The only casualty to the snow has been the swing set. But it will re-appear when the spring meltdown takes hold.

So I think that about covers it for this one. Looks like some more snow to come this week, but not as much as last week. So any Houghton-Keweenaw school kids reading this be ready to have a full week!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

It’s only been 6 days since I last wrote, but it has also been 31.5″ of snow later. Yep, it’s been a pretty snowy week, even by Keweenaw standards. There are some beginning to wave the white flag. Some are surrendering outright, while others are are simply asking for a cease-fire, so they can re-group.

Me? Bah…Bring it! Of course that is as long as I do not have to drive to work in it. Also as long as I can sit in the heated cab of my tractor, listening to tunes while I clear all the snow that falls! I may have some toughness still left in my, but mostly just grateful to be able to have all the resources I have to deal with it. I think I can still do a little chest thumping though. I did tough it out in the years before Big Red came along. I can remember a few storms in which I nearly collapsed while manhandling the walk behind blower not long after my first open heart surgery. I can also remember having to dig down through 4 feet of snow, just so that I could get to the firewood pile that only had a plastic tarp to protect it from the elements.

Perhaps I am like the old, grizzled, war veteran that could go back into action if it absolutely had to happen, but has already paid his dues and lead a less strenuous life.

The kids have really been piling up the snow days lately. If memory serves me right, they had all of Monday off, 1/2 of Thursday off and all of Friday off. In my opinion, they were all deserved. Some folks grumble about how easily they close schools these days, but I really do not see much of a change. I know when I was a kid and the blizzard of ’79 hit the Chicagoland area, it started on a Saturday and ended on a Sunday and we still got the whole following week off. Truth is, by about Wednesday or Thursday, all had been cleaned up and we could have easily gone to school Thursday and Friday. I didn’t complain! I guess my other thought is…Just because “back in the old days” we might have had to go to school in conditions that were hazardous and still survived, does that mean we should send our own kids to school when conditions are hazardous? I survived all of my trips in a car with no seatbelt on, but I wear one 100% of the time now. I survived being in buildings with lead pain and asbestos, but those two things are now outlawed. Ok, enough of my soap box.

So before the storm even hit, we were warmed up with around 14″ of snow earlier in the week. Much of it coming Monday, causing what looked like a 2 hour delay in school to become the full day off. Nora has been reading about lots of folks who had problem with their furnace vents becoming clogged up. In most cases, its because of the water vapor in the exhaust freezing and clogging up the vent. I know ours is a PVC pipe that actually has the opening pointing down at an angle so that it cannot freeze up. It also sits around 8 feet off the ground, so would need some kind of doing to have it clog up from the bottom. In any case, to put hers and my mind at rest, I went and checked on Tuesday and got quite a surprise. It was not clogged nor in immediate risk of being clogged up, but the dripping water from the vent pipe had created a 6 foot tall column of ice! Right after taking that shot I knocked it down, so we should be good for a few more weeks!

So the big storm hit Thursday afternoon and continued into the overnight period. We actually awoke to light snow falling, I don’t think it has even stopped snowing for more than an hour or two in the past 2 weeks. However, the heavier stuff was not predicted to arrive until around midday on Thursday and it arrived around 1-2 pm. I was actually in a meeting that afternoon and watched the snow get heavier and heavier and the winds stronger and stronger and was relieved that they had let schools out at noon. I am part of the decision making process for the schools up here. I do not make any call as to if they should be open or closed, but I do provide the districts with the forecast that they use to determine if school is a go or not. They also coordinate with the road commission and with other districts superintendents. It’s a pretty involved and effective process.

My drive home from that meeting was an interesting thing and when I got home, I helped get dinner ready and then after dinner, Grace and I went outside to play with the dogs. It was coming down quite heavily by then, I would say around 2-3″/hour. There would be brief moments when it slowed its intensity a bit, but then got right back on it. I figured there must have been some decent convection (like a warm season rain shower or even thunderstorm) going on to produce such heavy snowfall rates and also the brief lulls. Not too long after that, I went to bed, wondering what I would find when I woke up.

I awoke around 4 am and looked out and it was still snowing. Not at the 2-3″/hour rate, but at least 1″/hour. I had cleared the hood of my truck off before coming inside the night before and there was a solid 8-10″ on it. When all was added up, the snows Thursday and Thursday night totaled 16″. Friday is our garbage pick up day and I am amazed a the conditions that they will deal with and still do a pick up, so I put on my boots/gaiters and other winter gear and loaded the garbage can into the truck to take it out to the road. Once back, I snapped a shot of my tracks in the snow, I love it when not only are tire tracks left, but tracks from where the bumper was dragging in the snow and the transfer case for the rear axle was hitting the snow. That is when you know it’s deep!

The heavier snow was over by Friday morning, but it did continue to fall all day. The winds were really nasty, blowing at 25-30 and gusting to 40. We picked up a few more inches of snow on Friday, but the main reason for the schools being closed was the blowing snow and wind chills reaching -25. I have been keeping an eye on the spool on the Woods Cam and it became buried by Thursday’s snow event. My depth was also the deepest it has been all season at 49″. The snow has since settled and the depth is a paltry 44″, but looks like we will be adding to the snowpack noticeably this week as well.

After clearing snow from our driveway Friday morning, the swing set was almost completely buried. That picture was taken around 2 hour ago, but the look has not changed much from when I cleared snow Friday. I suspect it will disappear with the snow indicated to fall this week.

Once done with our driveway, I moved on to our neighbors. Ever since acquiring Big Red, I have gone down to clear her driveway. Her husband passed away about a year before I got Big Red and the driveway does not lend itself to being plowed, as the only place to push it is the road we live on and that is not a workable solution. He used to use a walk behind blower and that first year, another gentleman in the neighborhood used his truck and plow, but with the previously mentioned problems.

One reason why I mention all of this is that my neighbor has a little shed in her yard and I always like to check out the amount of snow on it and watch it pile up on it and around through the season. I’m waiting for the season in which it completely disappears! Not there yet.

After doing that clearing, I shot back home, jumped in the truck to get some more fuel for Big Red. The tank was showing 1/2 full, which would typically be enough to allow me to drive to the ice rink, clear it off and get home, but I figured this would not be a typical clearing of the rink. Upon my arrival at the rink, my suspicions were confirmed. I had some decent snow to clear before I could even get to the rink! Once inside the rink, I could see I had my work cut out for me, as the snow was piled about halfway up the boards in most cases and in some areas where it had drifted, it was over the boards!

It is really cool to be inside the cab of Big Red and watch it do it’s work in moving the snow. At times, the entire tractor shakes due to the hard work of the augers and impeller on the blower, but it has yet to meet it’s match…if I go slow enough and have enough traction. There are times I need to back up and gain a bit of forward motion to eat into the snow, but that machine and its blower do a magnificent job! After clearing the rink and then spending a bunch of time opening up more room to get to the rink (the township plows out the parking lot and a path behind the warming house for the rink), I headed home. All told, 4 1/2 hours from start to finish (including the break to get fuel) to move snow Friday! Not complaining at all!

Best I can tell, everyone has dug out from all the snow last week. We had a nice weekend for it and are now getting ready for more. Roofs are being shoveled and front end loaders are out making room for the plow truck operators to push the snow to. We got our roofs shoveled last week before the storm hit. The wood shed and lean-to still need to be shoveled, but is not too hard of a job and I may tackle them myself this week. One way or another, they need it!

Good night from a snowy Keweenaw..
–JD

OK, I finally got the keyboard thawed out, now I can write! Actually, I should not complain about the cold. We did not have it nearly as bad as all of MN, WI, most of IA and IL. My coldest temp was -17 and that was for a very brief time shortly after midnight early Thursday morning. Most of the temps I saw during the cold snap were in the -4 to -8 degree range. Pretty amazing to think that the big lake kept us warmer than locations nearly 600 miles to the south of us. Cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, plus TONS of snow! The Keweenaw is truly a magical place. Speaking of snow, the final 10 days of January saw 40″ of new snow drop on us here in the suburbs of Mohawk. That’s a pretty healthy amount, even by our standards. Needless to say, it is starting to get deep around here. As deep or deeper than it was all last season. Part of the reason is that a lot of the snow prior to the second half of January’s snow was system snow and not the lake effect fluff. I love the fluff, but it is also nice to have a great base of dense snow down before it comes. It has gotten deep enough that the roofs are now in need of a shoveling. That was the shop roof and I do not mess with it. It has actually already self-cleared several times this season and other than where the lean-to is, it just fine. The overhanging drifts could use a bit of assistance in dropping off and that will happen soon. My depth here has been hovering around 34-38 inches deep for about 2 weeks. The lake effect that fell last week pretty much compacted itself down and we even had a bit of freezing drizzle early Sunday morning that did some settling of the snow. This week looks like a lot of system snow will fall, so I am fairly confident that we will go above the 40″ mark and stay there for a while. Actually, with as much snow as is in the forecast for the next 5-6 days, might we go above 50″? Only time will tell. The depth is measured in a spot not too far from the woodshed, but for those wanting to see the depth at any time of the day/night, be sure to check out the woods cam. Here is a view of the nearly buried utility spool from a slightly different angle. The spool has been completely buried in the past and it looks like we have a good chance for it this winter. As mentioned, we did not get as cold as most other areas in the northern Midwest last week, but we did have our fair share of winds and wind chills. Schools were called on Wednesday and Thursday because of wind chills of -40, even during the day. The winds also created some interesting patterns in the snow. I noticed a cool pattern on my truck and had to snap a shot of it to share, before I cleaned off the truck for use. By the way, the winds were blowing from rear to front when they created that pattern. Another interesting pattern I spotted in the snow this weekend was a gi-normous paw print in the snow. Certainly not from Huck or Millie! That was a big one! There is not a lot of things that can leave a print in the snow that large. A full grown wolf? Yes would be the typical answer, but in this case…Nope, just Bleau! Yep, his paws are so huge, I cannot believe it. He does float on the snow very well. It is funny to watch him romp around in the snow with Huck and Millie. He only sinks in a few inches and looks like he is wearing snow shoes. Poor Huck and Millie sink right up to their undercarriage. Sometimes even deeper. We had to put our evening play sessions on hold last week because of the cold, but were able to get out over the weekend. We might have run them all bit too hard during Saturday’s play session, because on Sunday, the only one really wanting to play was Grace and for a little bit Bleau. He gave her a few pulls around the driveway, but then seemed to lose interest. On Saturday, the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club held its annual bonfire to give sledders an on-trail pit stop with food and beverages, as well as meet some of the members of the club and make a donation if they wanted. The weather was nearly perfect for it, with temps in the 20’s and a bit of light snow falling from time to time. We had a wonderful turnout. It was never a mad-house, but we kept pretty steady from a little after noon through 3 and I finally had to pull the plug on my attendance by around 4 to head home. One of our club members even showed up on an antique sled with his two boys riding in the back in a cutter. It sure brought back memories of when I would ride in the cutter with a blanket over me. Fell asleep several times if I remember correctly! Anyway, thanks to all that stopped in and payed a visit. It was fun chatting with you and getting to know you. I am very sure we will be making this a long-running annual event. Yesterday we were invited to a snow show/ski expedition to the big lake. We have friends that live down in Jacobsville and are in walking distance to a little beach area. We walked to the beach on this path back in the warm months and yesterday strapped on skis or snow shoes and made the same trip. Poor Nora has come down with a bad cold, so she had to forgo all the fun, but Grace, her two friends and our friends and I all made the venture to the big lake. I chose skis, as I was hoping it would be a little less effort than snow shoes, but I am not sure that was the right decision. Even though temps were in the 20’s, the snow was a little sticky to my skis and so I did more walking that striding, but still made it there and back. It was cool to see the ice formations along the shoreline, as well as the ice flows out in the big lake. Off in the distance we could also see Bergh Island. OK, so it’s not called Bergh Island anymore, but since the “Bergh” comes from it’s first settlers who were Nora’s great-great grandfather/grandmother, I feel obligated and proud to call it that rather than Rabbit Island! When I woke up this morning, all was calm. A storm was bearing down on us, but it had not started yet. I was out with the dogs around 4:30 letting them go potty when a single snowflake fell right in front of me. A moment later, another, then another and before we went inside, it was snowing lightly. The strange thing about the snow flakes was that they seemed to be falling faster than normal. I knew this storm was going to provide a myriad of precipitation types and knew we were going to be very close to the demarcation line between pure snow and something else, so that likely had something to do with the strange velocity at which the flakes were falling. About 90 minutes later, as the girls awoke for what looked to be a 2 hour delay in school (they ended up with the day off), it was a really cool scene outside. There were the biggest flakes falling that I have ever seen. Most were 2-3″ in diameter and a few seemed to be as large as 4″! Prior to this, the largest I had ever seen was around 1-2″. I did snap a few shots of the snow falling, but it was dark out and the phones camera just could not fully capture the true size of the flake, but still cool. Needless to say that the snow piles up quite rapidly when the flakes are that large, but it was interesting. It did not pile up in the typical smooth surface, but yet in a very bumpy surface, as each flake seemed to leave its own mini mound of snow. I also shot a quick video of the snow falling. What is cool to see is when the flakes hit the side of the vehicles. They explode into the individual flakes that made up the giant ones. Hope you enjoy. Well, I guess that covers it for this one. I am off to clear snow off the ice rink, our neighbors driveway and then ours, then settle in for a nice evening with the family. Good night from the Keweenaw.. –JD