One of those winters

Apparently it’s going to be one of those winters.

Because it didn’t start early I didn’t expect much. After all, this is Montana. It gets cold here and it snows every win-ter. Some winters just happen to start much earlier than others.

This one didn’t. October was balmy. November was mild. It wasn’t until December that it began to snow in earnest and get cold.

By January folks who usually stay all winter were talking about heading to warmer climes.

Barb and I postponed our Christmas trip to Livingston until last week because of the weather, and the flu our grand-children were fighting. The roads were clear for our drive from Malta, but Livingston was a mess.

I knew it had snowed a bunch there but snow typically doesn’t last long in Livingston. The wind usually takes care of that. What doesn’t blow away to Big Timber melts quick-ly. In the years I lived there snow was seldom on the ground for much more than two weeks at a time.

Not this winter.

The streets were polished ice and the town was decorated with wind-sculpted drifts.

When street crews were clearing snow from my daughter’s neighborhood, she asked them to drop a load in the front yard. By the time Barb and I arrived, our grandchildren had turned the 10-foot-high pile into a massive snow fort riddled with tunnels.

We had planned to meet our friend Chris, who lives at the mouth of Tom Miner Basin, the next morning, but he called to tell us he couldn’t make it. His tractor wasn’t running and it looked like it would be a while before he could get out.

Another friend up the Shields Valley is in a similar fix. He’s also snowed in until his backhoe gets out of the shop.

And it’s not just Montana. My friend E-Dub, from Laramie, Wyo., who was up here to hunt the end of the pheasant season told me he’s tired of the cold, which hit 40 below last week. He’s begun looking at time shares in Florida.

I’m not yet to that point. After spending my first couple of Montana winters in Cooke City, it’s still a little easier eve-rywhere else. That was the only place I’ve lived where the snow got deep enough to cover the windows.

I’m fond of saying the snow and cold keep the riff-raff out of Montana. Unfortunately, it sometimes makes it difficult on the rest of us, too.

Parker Heinlein is at

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