Say Farewell to Snow!

Update: March 20th.  Spring skiing or fly fishing the lakes of eastern Washington.  It is always a tough choice in March.  But there is nothing like spring skiing at Camas Meadows.  So off I went to enjoy a day in the sun.  Camas Creek has several channels as it wanders through the meadow.

Now the end of ski season is usually announced by the murmurings of Camas Creek after it appears from a long winter slumber.  Today, I carefully picked the snow bridges over Camas Creek as I skied the meadow.  On the way back to the cabin I carefully picked my location and swiftly skied over the ice covered channel.  Well, the ice suddenly gave way and I was looking up from the bottom of the creek channel to the ice sheet above me.  I can report that the ice was approximately an inch thick and obviously fairly rotten.  Bugaboo quickly ran over and wanted to play with me in the newly exposed creek channel.

So ends ski season 2010 at Camas Meadows.  And it ended not with the gentle sounds of the creek flowing once again, but rather with a rather definitive "sploosh".

This weekend was sunny and warm.  Perfect for spring skiing on the meadow.  This winter has been sunnier and with less snow than a normal winter.  However, the meadow is still covered in snow, but the warm weather will soon lead to a field of wildflowers rather than snow.

Our min-max thermometer showed a high of 70 degrees this month at Camas!  The low for the month was 14 degrees.  The nights are still cooling down nicely.  This means that skiing is icy in early morning.  For the best skiing sleeping in is the ticket, and then venturing out in the corn snow for a great afternoon ski trip.  Once the meadow melts out, there still will be additional skiing on Forest Service lands south of the chalet.

Out in the middle of the meadow, Camas Creek is slowly peaking through the snow.  Soon the snow bridges that span the creek will fall through.  There is probably one or two more weekends of skiing left on the meadow.

Soon our attention will shift to wondering when the first Glacier Lily will appear.  Are the elk going to show up on April 15th or will they come earlier this spring?  Now that we have figured out the mystery of the Sandhill Cranes, when will they arrive for their romantic tryst?  See last year's blog entry for more information on the Sandhill Cranes of Camas Meadows.

If you can visit Camas Meadows only once a year, wildflower season is the time to do it!  Our wildflowers should peak about mid-May this year. 

We are booked the second weekend in April.  We are also booked July 12th through July 19th.  It looks like we will be getting more week long bookings this summer.  So reserve your special trip to Camas Meadows soon.