After the storm

A few days ago, after Before the storm... post, a friend of mine asked: "What about after the storm pictures?" At this point, no one knew how big the storm was coming and what we could expect from it... When it came, the soft  snow covered everything, and it was just beautiful First snow... So we relaxed and didn't expect the next part which came the day after. On Friday morning, it snowed again, and by the end of the day we had quite a lot of snow. But it also continued to snow all night, and when I looked out the window this morning, I realized that we had a really bad storm. The oak tree, which is usually towering and almost as tall as the building, was now dwarfed to half its usual size. The heavy snow bent the branches and it didn't look good.

 

So I pulled on my waterproof pants and jacket and went outside. Everything looked absolutely unrecognizable. The snow had bent every tree in the neighborhood, and so many branches were broken... It was a really sad thing to see. I spent the next hour walking around our building and shaking off as much snow as I could. I was hit by mounds of snow several times, and although the branches sprung up, freed from the heavy weight, they still remained low to the ground.

This is, by the way, the same oak I saw from my window this morning. Can you imagine the force it took to bend it so badly?

After about an hour of exercise, I decided that I had done all I could, so I went back... The trees looked much better, but still... can you imagine that? Usually there is clear passage between these trees (normally tall trees, but not today), and now I had to bend down to pass under the branches. And the light snow was still falling down...

After breakfast I decided to go out again, this time with my camera, not only the phone, and try to capture the disaster that surrounded us this morning.

Again... usually we can just walk here, and it wasn't the case this morning. Branches blocked the way...

I am not sure if this maple will survive. So many branches were bent really badly, and so many were just broken...

Most of the time I wandered through ankle-deep snow and finally I reached the Highline Canal, which looked just stunning...

It's unbelievable that just a couple weeks ago the same trail looked... mmm... different :) - Yellow walk

No complaints though. It was a really nice walk too... And the trail was already plowed :) But sadly, there were so many badly bent and broken trees like this one.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed this walk, even though the snow was still slowly falling and it was relatively cold...

But... it wouldn't be Colorado if the weather hadn't changed in a blink and changed dramatically. In the afternoon, the sun came out from behind the clouds and started working on the snow, melting and disintegrating it. So I couldn't stay away from it and... went outside again...

Everything looked different now. Much nicer and brighter too... And most of the snow had released the tree branches, and... nothing looked so dramatic anymore. Although the broken branches still reminded me that not all the trees had survived this storm undamaged.

But now we had a hope that in a couple of days all the snow will be gone (yep, welcome to sunny Colorado) and we will have a few more weeks of warm, sunny and colorful days...

By the way, when I got home, I looked out the window and noticed that the oak tree was looking much better. Not as tall and straight as usual... but getting there!

The pictures were taken on November 09, 2024.