Bear Lakers

This winter has been rather mild here in Logan  as it has for much of the Inter mountain West, though I do recall Reed telling me that he had spent hours shoveling the deep snow at his place in Fish Haven/ Bear Lake West earlier in the winter.  We had some snow here as well at that time, but what was here about six inches was more than sixteen at his house.  Since then the snow has melted and we have received only small off and on snow fall since then.  I suppose it's because of the long snow winters that so many of my early memories are associated with snow, and snow storms.  I think I have told a few snow happenings in this blog before and will try not to repeat myself.  What got me thinking about snow and growing up in Bear Lake Valley with it's notorious Bear Lakers was a photograph I found on the web a while back.  It was taken in 2004 and shows what then remained of the old Lyman A. Hymas barns in Liberty and the surrounding countryside.  Iris and I lived in the house there for three years when we first moved back to Bear Lake.  Well do we remember the fierce snow storm of that first winter back in the Valley.  I remember going out in the back porch one morning with a yard stick to measure the newly fallen snow from the previous twenty four hours.  The yard stick wouldn't quite do it.  I estimated it came up about three inches short.  These thirty nine inches came in just one snow storm which  lasted over a couple of days.  It was mostly quote a powdery snow.  The next day the wind began to blow and it blew for three straight days.  Schools were closed and everything but the very most essential activity out of doors came to a halt.  We didn't see another soul for three days.  It took another two or three days to get the roads cleared and traffic moving about again.  The good thing about it was that the lights, at least where we were didn't go out and we had plenty of food and fuel to keep us full and warm.  When it was all over, I went out and spent a couple of days shoveling the car out of the snow drifts and a pathway from the house out to the mail box.  I well remember shoveling snow from the path and throwing it in a bank  on either side that was well over my head.  I remember other storms similar to this one, but not since that time.  Needless to say, we were grateful that no one was hurt, lost or made to suffer unduly from this and other Bear Lakers experience while we lived in the Bear Lake Valley. The picture below is just a reminder of those days and that it could happen again.  There is nonetheless a sort of majesty to the snowy landscape left by these winter storms.

By Bart