My Recent Journey into the Mountains: Record Snowfall at the Maroon Bells in Colorado
I recently went backpacking in Colorado with my dad, uncle, and cousin. My dad and I usually hike on the Appalachian trail around this time (late June) but this year we wanted to change things up a bit. My cousin, who lives in the area, suggested we do the Four Pass Loop trail, starting at Maroon Lake. He and my uncle anticipated unseasonably high snowfall but what we found was still unexpected. We arrived in Aspen on Monday evening and took a bus from the highlands to Maroon Lake. On the ride, the bus driver gave us our first insight into what we might find on the trail. On either side of the road, the avalanche debris scarred the landscape. Hundreds of Aspen and pines felled by hurricane-force winds and 300,000 cubic feet of snow. The bus driver remarked that no-one alive had experienced this amount of snowfall so late in the year. While that may have been an exaggeration, it is true that the region hasn’t experienced anything like this in the last 4–5 decades.
Upon arriving at Maroon Lake, we made the 1.5-mile trek up to Crater Lake and made camp for the night after hiking only a few hundred meters up the trail and finding a snow-covered landscape. The next day, we decided to try the 8 miles to Snowmass Lake (my dad and I are used to 15 mile days on the Appalachian Trail so, in theory, it would be a breeze). However, it didn’t take long, maybe an hour, before we had to put snowshoes on to continue toward Buckskin Pass. We hiked up to about 11,800 feet, right at the base of Buckskin Pass and looked up. What we saw was a wall of snow and an overhang over the pass, probably 20 feet high. Completely impassable. And looking around the bowl we found ourselves in, it appeared as though we were surrounded on all sides by other menacing overhangs. While if you kept your distance, there was no immediate avalanche danger, there was certainly enough snow to bury anyone up close (i.e. anyone trying to cross over the pass). So we were forced to turn back. The next day we tried our luck on the West Maroon Trail and found more of the same.
So why is there so much snow on the mountain this late in the year? While seasonal variability is one explanation, Climate Change is another. And yes, this is the same Climate Change driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions resulting in warming global temperatures. But how can higher temperatures lead to more snowfall?
Because of the Clausius-Clapeyron (C-C) increase in absolute humidity, warmer air retains more moisture which results in more precipitation. As well, a persistent El Nino has resulted in below-average temperatures in the Colorado region. This means that increased levels of precipitation, brought up from the warmer southern climate, reach the cold air in Colorado and manifest as heavy snowfall due to the drop in temperature. This phenomenon has been observed elsewhere. In south-central Alaska, snowfall has increased dramatically since the late 19th century despite an increase in regional temperatures of 2–3 degrees. According to Winksi et al (2017), through the atmospheric teleconnection, warmer western tropical Pacific and Indian Ocean waters have contributed to an increase in Alaskan precipitation. Essentially, warmer surface temperatures over the Pacific and Indian oceans have caused greater convection (air rising to the top of the atmosphere). This air then travels to the low-pressure system in the Alaskan Gulf resulting in more storms on the south-central coast of Alaska. The result is increased snowfall.
Climate Change has and will continue to impact our world in many different ways whether it be drought in California, record-breaking summer temperatures in Southern Australia, or increased snowfall in Colorado and Alaska. It can be difficult to view such events as part of this larger phenomenon. But let there be no doubt, as temperatures continue to warm, we will have to adapt to new environments and changing weather patterns and it will be that ability to adapt or lack thereof, that will decide our future on this planet.
