Minakami Blizzard!

This is our first winter in Minakami so we have no basis for comparison but by any scale this amount of snow would surely constitute a blizzard. Even our neighbor, Mountain Man Tom, declared this unusual. From my perch at the dining table all I can see is snow. Their dark bark adorned with a wide, white stripe down their backs, the trees look like skunks. The icicles are more impressive than ever. The atmosphere is so white it is almost blue. And the flakes just keep falling. Some are heavy and wet. Others do a little a dance on their way down. Together they cover every horizontal (and not so horizontal) surface.



When we arrived on Friday night, the air was full of flurries. But by the time we woke up on Saturday, our world was blanketed with a thick, luscious layer of fresh snow. Pippi and I watched from the living room window as the skiers slid down our steep access road …. in the Jeep! With David at the wheel I knew car and passengers were in good hands. But no traction is, well, no traction. Fortunately a close encounter with a tree brought their little adventure to a halt. No damage occurred but the conditions were clearly not driver-friendly.



Needless to say, Pippi and I decided to hunker down. In fact, hiking really wasn’t an option since the height of the rapidly accumulating snow was above Pippi’s shoulders! Just getting her to go out and pee required concerted cajolery. Plus we felt a familial duty to keep the home fires burning. Literally. We didn’t even bother to change out of our PJs. Turned out the skiing conditions were sub par – too cold and too much snow? Is that even possible? Maybe it was the wrong “kind” of snow.



By the time we went to bed, there was at least a respectable 15 cm. layer on the roof. But overnight the amount doubled or more. And the snow just keeps falling. It is so beautiful and unspoiled.