Dear HCN,
Allen Best (HCN, 2/18/02:
How does snow melt?) suggests that we can identify “real”
Westerners using the test question, “How does snow melt?” It’s an
appropriate test. Unfortunately, Mr. Best flunks his own test.
Quoting from the last paragraph: “For the record: It melts from the
ground up. Not knowing such things does not portend the decline of
civilization in the West, but it does say that the relation of
Westerners to their landscape is changing.”
Snow
does not melt from the ground up. If that were the case, we would
not have a seasonal snowpack, no ski industry, and no water from
snow melt runoff to support municipal, industrial and agricultural
demands for water.
As all Westerners know,
snowmelt starts at the top of the snowpack in the spring when the
sun is higher in the sky and air temperatures become warmer. A
classic example of Westerners passing the “snow test” is
illustrated by land-use codes recently passed by San Miguel County
to protect the pristine values of high-elevation areas around
Telluride.
Construction of trophy homes at high
elevation by the likes of Tom Cruise and Oliver Stone has led the
county to look for a scientific basis on which to develop land-use
codes that protect resource values in these sensitive areas while
allowing for prudent and reasonable
development.
My research group worked with the
county to develop such codes, and presented them at a
standing-room-only meeting before the county board of
commissioners. One of the major land-use codes was no winter
plowing of roads that accessed sensitive areas. We were asked why.
The reason is because the snow pack melts from the top down. As
melt water starts to move vertically through the snowpack, ice
lenses and other features cause the liquid water to move laterally
downslope. A plowed road acts like a ditch, intercepting this
lateral flow and routing snow melt runoff onto the
road.
In turn, snowmelt runoff turns these plowed
roads into gullies, something every real Westerner knows and
something “newbys” learn quickly when they get their new four-wheel
drives stuck in the spring. When we presented this rationale at the
townhouse meeting in Telluride to developers, homeowners, working
stiffs, gainfully unemployed fun pigs, USFS personnel, and others
that make up the cross-section of people in the “New West,” there
was no argument. They understood. They passed the snow test. And
the county board of commissioners passed the land-use
codes.
Mark
Williams
Boulder, Colorado
The writer is a snow hydrologist at CU-Boulder.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Allen Best flunks the snow test.
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