Moving from fall to winter

It was fun walking around with my camera, seeing the collection of interesting things that happen when fall and winter collide.  Our neighbors little scooter has probably seen one of it's last runs for the year.  Time to hibernate.

My favorite was a pair of pumpkins that someone left on the hilltop behind our house.  No idea why they were left where almost no one will see them.  It certainly leaves you with the thought of a cold, cold Halloween.

You get some snow, but you still have some warm weather.  This creates an incredible amount of ankle deep slush.

Meanwhile, some areas look like they have just jumped straight to winter.

You can see the slopes have a white coating, but only about 8 inches.  Not even enough to cover the grass, much less the rocks and logs.

Last night the temperatures dropped to 13 and today's high barely got to freezing.  That means that the ski resorts have their first opportunity to make snow, and make it they did. Looking around, it appears that Park City and Deer Valley were each running about 50 snow blowers.

The guard rail near Empire Pass was coated with frosting, carefully applied. You have to double-click on the image to see how smooth it was.

The road to Guardsman Pass never gets plowed and it will close for the winter sometime soon.  Today it was packed with snow and a bit slippery.  As I started up the hill to Big Cottonwood Canyon, I saw a pair of cars blocking the road.  Looks like there was a bit less traction than they were counting on.  I turned around and called it a day, slowly of course.

Powder Mountain, a small ski area an hour north of here, ended up with a three day snowfall total of 42".  That's HUGE for October.  Actually, that's huge any month. Now it looks like we will give fall one last chance.