No snow: 'I've never seen anything like this before'
Jon Crandall of Coram paddles his canoe across Lake McDonald Thursday afternoon. "This is the earliest (in the year) I have ever done it," said Crandall of his canoe trip. He was planning to paddle down lower McDonald Creek and then along the Middle Fork to his mother's home in Hungry Horse. Karen Nichols/Daily Inter Lake
Skiing and snowshoeing have turned into hiking and old-timers can't recall a February when there was such little snow in and around Glacier National Park.
After a rapid melt in mid-January followed by three weeks of practically no snow or rain, all that remains are crusty skiffs of snow in the park's lower elevations. Snowpack measurements in the mountains are at near-record lows.
"I was born and raised in this valley and I've never seen anything like this before," said Lee Downes, a lifetime resident of the North Fork Valley on Glacier's western flank.
Downes, 76, said south-facing slopes are conspicuously bare of snow and his snowmobile has been rendered mostly useless in the valley bottom.
Downes can drive his vehicle up to his cabin at Coal Creek, about seven miles from the North Fork Road.
"It's the first I've ever been able to do so," he said. "You could make it up there all winter. At one time, there was a little over a foot of snow but you could still make it in."
Larry Wilson, who has had a North Fork cabin since 1947, had similar observations.
"We've had winters where we've had not a lot of snow but lots of rain, but nothing this low," he said. "By this time of year we should have two feet or 30 inches, even if it's settled."
Wilson and Downes said the North Fork River is flowing at spring-like levels.
"What concerns me," Wilson said, "is that we've really got nothing as far as snow up on the Continental Divide or the Whitefish Divide."
Wilson is already starting to think about how the summer wildfire season could shape up as a result of current snow conditions.
February is typically a time when Glacier's buildings and roads and campgrounds are buried under snow. It's usually a time for cross-country skiers and snowshoers.
But Thursday - when Flathead Valley temperatures matched a 1954 record of 51 degrees - there were people picnicking at Apgar Village and canoeing and scuba diving on Lake McDonald.
A park-sponsored snowshoeing naturalist tour had been changed out of necessity: A group of participating school children were hiking over patches of bare ground behind their leader Thursday.
People are bicycling into the Two Medicine Valley on the park's east side, and a park researcher was recently able to walk on pavement to The Loop on Going-to-the-Sun Road.
At the park's West Glacier headquarters, total snowfall for the month of January amounted to 22 inches, about half last year's measurement for the month.
By month's end, there were just four inches of snow on the ground at headquarters, compared to 39 inches at the end of January 2004.
"When you can walk halfway to Bowman Lake and not touch any snow, it's pretty different for this time of year," said Reggie Altop, an assistant ranger at the park's Polebridge ranger station.
Altop recalled that the winter of 2001 was one of the driest on record, but because of persistent cold weather, snow remained on the ground around the park.
"At the end of March there is usually more snow up here than there is now," he said.
Snowpack measurements across Northwest Montana are far below the historic average and approaching record lows set in 1978 and 2001. A few automated snow measuring sites have set record lows.
The overall snowpack above the Flathead River basin is 60 percent of the 30-year historic average and 60 percent of last year's snowpack, according to the January month-end report released Thursday by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Snowpack above the Kootenai River Basin is at 62 percent of average and 63 percent of last year's marks, said Roy Kaiser, the service's water supply specialist in Montana.
"We're definitely at the bottom end of the snowpack," Kaiser said. "The one thing that is probably going to save the Kootenai and the Flathead, at least in the upper reaches, is that streamflows are at or above average right now."
East of the Continental Divide, the Sun, Teton, Marias and Milk rivers already have well-below-average flows. Because of the low snowpack, those rivers could have record low flows by summer.
The service's most recent streamflow forecast, for April through July, projects flows that will be far below average even in the Flathead and Kootenai.
Low snow conditions have taken a toll on Western Montana ski areas. Turner Mountain near Libby is closed until conditions improve.
Blacktail Mountain west of Lakeside remains 50 percent open. The ski area issued a press release Thursday saying that skiing is good on the upper portion of the mountain, largely because skiing is concentrated on north-facing slopes. The lower half of the mountain is closed.
Big Mountain north of Whitefish announced Thursday that its annual Doug and Rollie Smith Memorial downhill race - scheduled next week - has been "postponed indefinitely" because of poor snow conditions at the lower end of the downhill course.
The dry spell may break slightly this weekend.
The National Weather Service has snow in the forecast for Northwest Montana tonight and Saturday, with possible accumulations of 1 to 2 inches in the valleys and 3 to 5 inches above 5,500 feet.
Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com