Santa Fe's First Snow of the Season - 2014

Aspen Vista Trail Oct 13, 2014 - courtesy of NM Bike N Sport

This year's first snow fell lightly on the high peaks along during Friday and Saturday's storm. Perhaps only just cold enough in the high-country for snow though nearly as cold here in town.

Accumulation was not obvious from lower elevations other than early morning views of Santa Fe Baldy. As always, the excitement of first winter marks the abrupt end for peak aspen colors. As such, the bad tempers the good, or good tempers good if you're a snow-hound.

We've been making note of the first fall for the last few years. In some cases I've noted the first fall in town rather than at 12,000 feet. If you're mobile it's all the same - pre-winter has made its mark. One added mark that parallels the snow gauges - HDD notched its four year anniversary on Oct. 1.

Yay snow!

Related Posts:
 - Santa Fe's First Snow 2013 - Oct. 12th
 - Santa Fe's First Snow 2012 - Nov. 16th
 - Santa Fe's First Snow 2011 - Sep. 10th
 - Santa Fe's First Snow 2010 - Nov. 10th
 - High Desert Dirt Turns Three

High Desert Dirt Turns Three

This week is the third anniversary of the writing-mapping-sporting project we hastily named HighDesertDirt. Started it up September 30, 2010 as a procrastinating diversion from CPA study work. At the time I had been inspired by a few online posts I'd come across written by Jacob Waltz over at santafetrailrunner (now on hiatus). Turns out there were other folks on the trails.

'I could do that', I thought.

'I could write dozens of stories about where I run and what I see. With a few interesting writeups this might even net me the occasional free beer!' There was little to no downside to this idea.

So I logged in and started writing about trails and beer and running, sometimes biking, other times skiing. Readers seemed to like the maps, so I started mapping a lot of the places I'd adventure to (not the super-secret stuff though). Race reports were (and continue to be) the most popular content so I find room for that and link it back to other content. I've met loads of interesting like-minded people, learned to code in html, found Twitter, and now see the Matrix of linked outdoors interest in Santa Fe. The complimentary beer may never materialize, but far better, I had the chance to meet Tony Sandoval, a huge hero of mine. And one writeup even led to a letter and signed photo that arrived from Joan Benoit, frea...king...Joan...ie...Ben...oit. The beer equivalent of this is much more than I could drink.

A very rewarding experience so far. There are many more stories and trails out there. Gotta get out and get after it.