Our friends and cabin neighbors (who are full-time mountain residents and hearty folks), have been "snowed-in" for almost 3 weeks. The roads were closed by early snow storms, and since the county does not plow to clear them, our friends have been unable to get to town.

On Monday, they hired a snowplow to clear the roads to Laramie, Wyoming (35 miles away) as, after 3 weeks, supplies (gasoline, and most critically, wine stocks) were getting low. They let us know after the road was cleared and felt it safe to drive in to our cabin with our new Jeep.

Our new Jeep - "Rubi'" a young, "female", ruby colored, Jeep Rubicon Unlimited Hardrock four-wheel-drive vehicle (quite a mouthful) visited our 8,500' elevation cabin for the first time. She found the ploughed roads easy going, however, of necessity, she elected to go cross-country where the unploughed roads were too deeply drifted over. Rubi was easily able to"bust" through 18" crusty snow drifts to get us to our cabin.

We enjoyed lovely sunny weather, but also gusty winds and much more snow than normal. Luckily, on our property we have some areas that the wind blows clear, (the cabin itself and driveway is free), whilst in other areas 15 foot drifts are created.

After an informal cocktail party with our friends, the winds rose to 20 mph and stayed there most of the night. By moning, we found our tracks covered and the roads partially closed. Luckily, the neighbors had errands in town, so we were able to join their 2 vehicle caravan to re-open the roads and return home tonight, before the next batch of snow arrives on Friday.

There are few dull moments when Mother Nature encloses the high country in her wintry embrace.