Nature Blog - Place Entry #5

Monday March 1, 2010 5:45 pm

Today I saw sunlight on Bridal Veil Falls for the first time this winter. Perhaps it's due to the lengthening days and the slow turn of the earth away from the North Pole, moving the sun a little further south every day. The pale orange sunlight was not strong enough to reach me as I stood looking up at the waterfalls, but it was there, illuminating the snow with a golden tint that stood in sharp, warm contrast to the blue of shadows.

Strangely, the natural light made the icicles look more frozen than ever. The direct sunlight made them less translucent and more opaque, winter's claws digging into the mountainside in defiance. I naively expected them to be melting in the bright light that has finally come after weeks of frozen gray, but no, they were clinging to the rock face more tightly than ever, immoveable, unchangeable, glowing, solid.

I thought I saw less ice and more cracks next to the bridal veil, but it might have been wishful thinking. The same large crack was there from earlier visits, but the snowpack below the falls looked as dense as ever before. The rushing water was crunching down the mountain, eating into the snow and ice, straining against what is frozen. I imagined its impatience with the long cold months, chomping at the bit to flow freely again. I know that's how I would feel.

Late winter and early spring often run together in Utah, trading off days and hours like the best of friends. It makes for some interesting days. We can have sixty degree weather for a week and then wake up Monday morning to six inches of snow. I've seen it happen, and no doubt it'll happen again this year. It dawned on me a year or so ago that it's actually a blessing that the weather freezes over periodically. If it warmed up and stayed warm, all the snow and ice would melt all at once and Provo would be flooded. With the schizophrenic weather, the melting can happen more gradually and we can stay dry.

As I looked up at Bridal Veil Falls, sunlight and rock and watter and snow and sky combining to complete the picture, I wondered how the picture would change in the next few days, and weeks, and months. How many more days of frozen icicles and when would the snow pack below the falls disappear, and what shades of blue and gray would the sky see before summer arrived to dehydrate all the colors? When would the colors seep back into the landscape?

As contented as I am with the evening sunlight on the waterfall and mountain rock and the glimmer of spring ahead, I know that one of nature's true allures is its unpredictability. And yet, it is also remarkable the same. The seasons shift and blend into each other, but it happens consistently. The weather may be something like playing roulette, but we can count on playing, every year. And though I know that eventually the ice will melt and Bridal Veil Falls will burst forth in a rushing, roaring cascade, I don't know when or how or what it will be like when it does. Nature certainly does know how to keep us coming back for more.