March
A few weeks ago I caught trout in a drainage 45 minutes and 2000' of elevation away. That was the last week of February and there was no snow anywhere below 8000'. The creeks were running a little high but generally clear, and it could have been May except for the absence of greenery in the hills. Fast forward to now and we've endured back to back storms that, even at our lower foothill elevation, have dropped several inches of snow. The mountains around our ranch have remained crowned in ice which is unusual since they only reach to about 4000'. Even shady north facing hillsides on the ranch have kept some snow patches. The snowpack wasn't desperate enough this year for this to count as a "Miracle March," but as I sit writing this I am watching the rain gauge creep past an inch just for the last few hours; we've surpassed last year's rainfall by a significant amount and that feels pretty miraculous. In fact we had more snow this year than e...
