Living in Woodland Park and Teller County usually comes with a very specific set of expectations. For those of us who, like myself, prefer warmth over cold, by the time January hits, we have usually moved past the denial phase. We accept our fate just as the winter truly settles in. Anyone who has lived here for a while knows that the real fun usually starts after New Year’s Day and culminates with a snowy crescendo in March. But this year, the sky seems to have forgotten the script.

My family is a bit different from many of our neighbors. We actually prefer hand shoveling to the loud, mechanized snowblowers that roar through the streets of Teller County. There is a certain rhythm to it that you only understand if you do it yourself. It is a workout and a chore all at once.
Because we shovel by hand, or maybe because the sun seems to skip over our property, we typically end up with massive piles that tend to last a month after our neighbors’ driveways have already melted. We usually have a kind of pride in those lingering white mounds.

This year, however, our shovels just sat on the garage hook we leave them on, hanging helplessly like silent watchmen with nothing to do. By midwinter, we should be deep into the season of heavy lifting and frozen car doors. While the rest of the country starts looking for signs of spring, we have historically been bracing for the biggest storms of the year.

Usually, we at least have a messy mud season to bridge the gap between snowstorms. But even that has gone missing.

The earth just looks thirsty.

There is a weird sense of guilt that comes with a winter like this. I do not miss the frozen fingers or the back-breaking labor of clearing the path before I head down the pass to school. I like being able to see the actual pavement on the roads. But another part of me feels like we are being cheated out of our
identity. In a mountain town, snow gives us a valid excuse to slow down and stay inside.

Lately, the conversation has shifted. We are not bonding over how hard it is to get out of our driveways. Instead, the talk has turned to our desperate need for precipitation.

We will keep checking our weather apps like they are broken compasses, hoping for a storm that actually sticks, and holding our breath and hoping that this dry spell does not lead to a devastating fire season. This winter might be easier on our backs, but it is a little harder on our spirits. We are a mountain community, and we are only truly ourselves when we are eventually buried in white.

Ruth Wiseman is a Woodland Park native and a dual-enrolled high school student attending Pikes Peak State College