A mild Wyoming winter...... so far.

I was just talking with some of the guys at work.  They hail from all over the country.  We agreed that in most places there's a common saying that goes "If you don't like the weather in (fill in the blank), wait a minute" (or five minutes).

This is said in Wyoming too.

Today I'd like the weather NOT to change. 

Sure, we need the snow 'cause it melts and becomes our water supply for the year.  But shirtsleeve weather anytime after the winter solstice is something to cherish - and that's what we've got for a few hours today.

But I have seen the weather change in "five" while hunting in the Bighorns. 

November 1996

It was a lovely late fall day as I headed up to where our elk camp was going to be.  I parked the 'ol truck when it couldn't go any steeper (is steeper a word?), and started walking.  After about 40 minutes under a cloudless sky the sun gave out.  I looked over my shoulder to see a fog bank approaching - - - fast.

Now a winter fog in the Bighorns is not tentative.  It rolls in like a battalion of German Panzers.  Relentlessly.   Unstoppable.  Certain.  Only there's no Panzer noise. It is silent, muting all other sounds as it just rolls over you and keeps on going.  One minute you can see the ridgeline 500 yards in front of you, the next one you can barely see your hand at the end of your arm.

My brain had a tug of war.  "Stay on the path, you'll find the campsite" vs. "Stop now, seek shelter."  I chose door #2 and it saved me from bigger problems.

A night in the bosom of a stand of trees with little food and less water is what happened next.  In the morning I dug my way through 3 feet of new snow to see that blue sky had replaced the fog - and snow was everywhere - stretching from horizon to horizon.

I could see I was only about 30 minutes from our camp - AND it was 90 compass degrees away from where I'd planned to head the evening before.

Thanks to snow up to my whatever, my 30 minute treck took 90, and when I found the campsite I was famished.  And food-less.  I dug around in the ring of rocks we used to contain our fires and found some potato peelings, a charcoaled hunk of onion and a piece of mystery meat still on a bone which looked like a rib.  Venison?  Deer meat?  Human?  Dog?  Didn't matter, it was dead and I wasn't.

Knowing my hunting partners had more knowledge of the mountians than I did,  I gathered fire wood and settled in to wait for them to show up with all the camping gear, some food and some coffee.

They did.  I didn't get my elk that weekend - but I sure got a great story to tell when someone says "If you don't like the weather in Wyoming, wait a minute."