Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

26 страница из 81

Above the lake is another feature left behind by an ice age. A mass of ice and rock slowly creeps down the side of the mountain: a rock glacier where there may have once been a proper glacier. Up until the last century, when a warming climate and more dust in the atmosphere began affecting snow in the Wasatch, the rock glacier had a permanent snowfield that lasted through the summer. Skiers would hike 3,500 vertical feet to ski it. My grandparents were two of those skiers.

My father brought my mother up to this snowfield on one of their first dates. It was early in the spring so they were still hiking on snowpack, but the snow had melted enough that there was a gap between the rock glacier and the mainland. According to my mother it was about five feet wide, and a fifteen-foot drop to a raging creek beneath. In her words, “It wasn’t huge, but it was one of those situations where if you missed your step it’d be the last thing you’d ever do.” My dad picked up the two dogs they were hiking with and threw them across the gap. They tumbled on the snow and stood up, apparently unfazed. Then my dad jumped, without checking to make sure my mother was comfortable following. My father was a professional racer on the US Ski Team at the time and in prime athletic condition. He had an adventurous soul, a way of getting people into situations that might make them feel uncomfortable, but also a way of getting them out. My mother was taken aback, but knew if she thought too hard about it she’d freeze. So she jumped.