steamboat springs new snow

I know Steamboat Springs best for beautiful blue sky days.  The big sky with the bright sun makes most days here a little more mystical.  The seasons compliment the sky, bringing hues that are full of life.  Other days, those in which gray skies are around, bring snow.

I know that gray skies bring rain also.  Right now, it’s wintertime and snow is in the forecast.

Snow is also magical.  It brings a different happiness around town and thoughts of powder turns are in everyone’s smiles.  When it snows, our town enjoys a myriad of activity ranging from skiing to shoveling to walking in the quiet that only snow brings.

It is really fun to watch tourists when it snows.  They, too, are thinking about great skiing from the new snowfall, but are also taken aback on how to get around town.  For residents, Steamboat Springs is not difficult to navigate.  Visitors get overwhelmed by snowy road conditions and react to it in different ways.  Most persons go very slow to both not cause an accident and to not miss their turn.  As a resident, it is often entertaining watching visitors navigate our small town, let alone with a bit of snow on asphalt.

Bicyclists may have the most fun.  By bicyclists, I mean those who ride fat bikes.  (There are some who ride mountain bikes on the streets in a snowstorm, but fat bikes are most common.)  It is pretty easy to see them on the road.  Often they have great snow gear on, a pack on the bike, and a pack on the rider.  A bike rider, in Winter, can often navigate to their destination in as much, or lesser, time as a car can during rush hour.  This may sound odd, yet when local cars and tourism based traffic come together, it can take a long while to get from here to there.

Something that consistently amazes me are long snow storms.  Sometimes it will begin to snow and not stop for days.  When I first moved to Steamboat Springs, I remember watching it snow for five days.  Sometimes it was heavily falling from the sky, and that was balanced with light flurries.  What was most significant is it didn’t stop snowing.  Whenever I looked outside, flakes were falling.  This was my first experience in alpine snowfall as well as the art of snow removal by crews.