One of the little-known benefits of owning hiking boots is that they can be conveyances that allow me to travel back in time.
Don't believe me? Do you think I'm pulling your leg? Well just check out these pictures from the hike my friends and I did in Central Washington Sunday. We began at a fairly low elevation near the Teanaway River where wildflowers were blooming and temperatures were Spring-like, shirtsleeves warm. A couple of hours later we'd climbed up, up, up into fresh snow…and WINTER!
See, time travel?
The new snow -- and there must have been about a foot that had fallen recently on the peak we climbed -- was great to see because all winter long folks here in Washington have been lamenting a low snow pack in our mountains. We need snow here, both as a kind of insurance policy against summertime wildfires, and as meltwater in coming months to feed rivers and streams that are part of an intricate web of irrigation systems for agriculture.
Next time you eat an apple grown in Washington or drink beer made from our hops, think snow. It is an essential part of the food this state's farmland produces for the rest of the nation.
