The mere mention of the word is an anomaly, especially in light of where we are in the calendar - the second week of February. Spring. Spring? 

The inklings on the land throughout Jackson Hole are difficult to ignore. Warm days transitioning into cold nights are more indicative of March, but melt water droplets falling onto the settling snowpack has led me to musings of spring. Waters flow brown in the streets at noon, only to turn icy at sunset. Recent foggy conditions and mild temperatures contrast the bitter cold that shrouded the valley in December, and this winter feels down right temperate compared to the winter of 2007-08.  

I had a juvenile fox lounging outside of the house this weekend, whose primary goal seemed to be to soak up the sun. She looked well and in no particular hurry to be on her way, except when it came to dodging the slowly shifting shadows projected by the roofline and nearby dormant willows. The moose that browse my neighborhood on Flat Creek are present of course, but their frames are full, their coats thick, not looking emaciated or acting erratic after eating the neighbor’s fermented crabapples. Chirping of the robin has become more prominent even with the high stacked snow. If there is a primordial sense of a seasonal transition, the morning song of our avian brethren ranks near the top.

All these hints of spring remind me of ‘January Thaw’, the opening pages of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, relating to backcountry rompings and the wildlife that seize upon a rare night of thaw. But as we all know and as history tells us, to go soft in February makes for a stark rebuttal when we go back to hunkering down on -20°f mornings in the weeks to come. Leaf buds on the cottonwoods do yet show the slightest sign of swelling and the beginning re-growth of vegetation is the ultimate gauge of spring. We are not clear of winter yet. Neither is the wildlife that is so dependant on the calories that these mild days allow them to conserve.

– Steffan Freeman

Photo by Chad Whaley