Notes from Gothic after winter: low snow year, marmots, billy barr, and pollinator phenological mismatch

 Notes from Gothic as winter comes to an end:

It was an extremely low snow year this winter in Gothic (3rd lowest winter since records began). With only a few weeks left when we might typically get snow, we're sitting at 225 inches (Historic average is 405.6", max snowfall was 646" winter of 94-95 and min snowfall was 186.6" was 76-77, also known as the "Winter of None"). I was looking back at photos I took May 1st from the Gothic bridge over the East River, and the difference is dramatic.

This caused me to look over billy barr's data set. For those not familiar with billy, he permanently moved to Gothic in 1974 and has been measuring snowfall and SWE (snow water content/equivalent) twice daily (a.m. and p.m.) since that first winter of 1974. He started doing it because he was curious (and bored, being one of only 3 people out here). He has used simple methods that line up with the now more sophisticated SNOTEL (automated snow telemetry) sites. His data is publicly available at https://www.gothicwx.org/

When graphed out, there's an obvious trend in Gothic towards less snow and for an earlier melt of the winter's snowpack. In the past 14 years, there has only been one year above the long-term average!

The 2nd graph is when the winter's snowpack melts to bare ground for the first time, not the last time snow is on the ground as mid June accumulating snows aren't uncommon. The red line is the trend line, the green dashed line is the average since billy began measuring snow. This year 0 cm was marked at May 4th. The latest the snowpack has subsisted was 19 June (winter 94-95) and the earliest it has melted out was 23 April (winter 11-12). On June 1st, there is on average 3.5" of snow still on the ground.

One of the things we noticed with the early snowmelt and warmer spring was that the flowers bloomed many weeks ahead of normal. Claytonia (common name: spring beauty, pictured) bloomed and faded before any pollinators had started flying (phenological mismatch). I talked to a pollination biologist this week, and he is unsure how this will affect their reproduction this year, but he will know by the end of the summer when he measures Claytonia seed set in his plots.

The marmots came out of hibernation in early April this year (graph courtesy of a trailside sign provided by Dan Blumstein of UCLA who has been part of a marmot study at RMBL dating back to 1962: https://sites.lifesci.ucla.edu/eeb-rmbl-marmots/ It's one of the longest continuous studies of a mammal in the world) Their research has shown that the earlier marmots emerge from hibernation the more negatively affected they are.

This is just the smallest of snippets from my personal observations and the research going on here at RMBL. RMBL has been operating as an outdoor lab since 1928, so they have been documenting change and species ability/inability to adapt for almost 100 years.

Take this info how you will. Here's to a deeper winter next year!

Spring in Gothic

It was a really warm and dry winter, so the snow melt is over a month over early compared to most years. It's crazy to look at pictures from this year at the end of April that have less snow than our other years at the end of May. Because of this the road will likely open much earlier than normal, and it means that we'll get 1 less month of skiing. When we arrived back to Gothic, there was lots of dirt showing, but when I looked at pictures from other years, at the same date the snow was white and deep and the river was hardly showing through the snow. I was also still skiing amazing powder runs. Crazy the variability between years.

4/24

We chilled around Estes. Mom and dad took us out to dinner Nepal's Cafe where we enjoyed the bottomless Chai

4/25

We drove back to CB. The snow is getting thin, but we were able to ski in and pull the heavy sled full of our gear and groceries back to Gothic

4/26

Did a ski up valley

4/27

Did a ski upvalley and ran into some snowmobilers who were illegally there!

4/28

Got some snow overnight, and Elisha and I skied up valley

4/29

We started to do cabin openings

5/1 Happy May Day!

We got a nice and beautiful overnight snow. Sophia and Benn had us over (as well as Dylan, who is studying plant phenology in the changing climate) over for dinner.

The plows came through today and plowed the road to Gothic on May Day

5/5-5/6

I took my WFR recert course with Billy R in CB South. It was fun and a bit cold, snowy, and wet. As you would expect in CB, it was an elite group of talented people (SAR, ski patrol, high mountain guides, etc).

5/5 Happy Birthday Elisha! Feliz Cinco de Mayo

For Elisha's birthday and Cinco de Mayo, we went to Pita's for Carnitas Pitas and $5 super grande margaritas

5/11

We hosted a bonfire for the people here (a few plant researchers and a couple staff) with s'mores, hot dogs, and a full flower moon.

5/12

The road to Gothic opened. Benn, Sophia, Elisha, and I biked out to get our cars to bring them back in. We had a beer at the gate.

5/14

Drove to Estes and arrived to Estes in a snowstorm. Mom gave us cheesecake and carrot cake for our birthdays.

5/15

Went down to Denver with mom for my birthday. First we spent the whole day at the zoo, which I love. Then we went out to eat Ethiopian on Colfax, which was delicious. Next it was onto Fortissimo for a fun night of cocktails and Dueling Pianos. We didn't make it home until 1am!

5/16

We met Rick, Hess, and Mitch in the RiNo district of Denver for fun mini golf at a cool place that was very technological. Then we all had dinner at the Denver Central Market.

5/17

We spent the day in Estes sorting through stuff we had stored in my parents' basement

5/18

Drove back to CB and arrived back to Gothic in a snowstorm.

5/19

A beautiful snowy and white day in CB

5/20

Had a our annual HOA meeting. Found out our HOA dues would be increasing by over $450/month. Yikes. Stress city

5/22

We went to the opening day of the Crested Butte Words Festival. It was a tribute to George Sibley who was the first caretaker in Gothic, way back in the 70's. I read his memoir "Part of a Winter" this winter. One of the speakers was the woman who wrote Go as a River. At the end I had George sign my copy of "Part of a Winter"

5/23

We went to watch the the movie "High Country" which is about Crested Butte. It was playing for free at the Majestic Theater

5/24-5/25

We started moving to our new place in Mount CB as we need to be out of Gothic at the beginning of June. Moving...ugh

5/26

I went with Janelle (she studies flower chemistry and how it relates to pollinators) for an adventure. The road up to Emerald Lake is still closed with some snow drifts, so we took e-bikes and biked up to Emerald Like. We then boot-packed (me in ski boots, Janelle in crampons) up Mount Baldy. I did 2 awesome ski laps (you can still ski to the road) and Janelle glissaded on her butt with an ice ax. Afterwards we went to Emerald lake which was still completely frozen

5/27  My birthday

I worked, but then we went out to the new Thai restaurant in CB

5/30

We biked up to emerald lake. The road is still closed as there is still some snow plugs. Emerald lake is still completely frozen

5/31-6/1

Moving. ugggh

5/31 

Mr. and Mrs Schmatz (Benn's parents) had us over for an AMAZING end of winter seafood feast. They had 2 types of shrimp, Colorado lake trout, mussels in white wine sauce, potatoes, coleslaw, bacon wrapped scallops, snow crab legs, and lobster tail! We had wine with dinner and then a digestif for after dinner. Dessert was a selection of 5 types of ice cream. Awesome!

6/1

Stayed up late to watch some weak aurora borealis.

6/4 

My first day at my new job at RMBL. It's called the CHESS project (Colorado Headwaters Ecological Spectroscopy Study). It's a NASA funded project being run by scientists at RMBL, Here's some info as detailed by the PI

Spring will soon be here in Colorado, and my team is in the final stages of planning CHESS, our big NASA-funded aerial hyperspectral imaging study, in collaboration with teams at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. 

If you haven't already heard about the project here's a synopsis: RMBL is bringing the NEON Aerial Observation Platform to the Upper Gunnison basin from mid-June through mid-July this summer. The NEON flight team will collect high-resolution aerial imaging spectroscopy (e.g. "hyperspectral") and laser scanning (e.g. "LiDAR) data over three large domains in the RMBL vicinity, including the watersheds of the East River, Almont Triangle, and the Upper Taylor Basin. In coordination with the flights, RMBL and LBL are mounting a big field campaign to ground-truth the measurements, including coordinated measurements of plant communities, forest health and soil properties. We anticipate that the data collected in this study will be broadly useful to anyone interested in RMBL ecosystems, how they function, and how they are changing over time. Datasets collected as part of this work will be publicly available, and a number of research teams are already coordinating with us to take field measurements.

 It's some really cool science and despite the fact that it's going to be an intense field campaign, I'm really excited for it.

6/5

It was our last day at Gates cabin =(  Now we have officially moved to our condo in Mt. Crested Butte