Bad times for a snow lover

I heard a joke the other day on the radio:

"Every municipality that gets snow these days, instead of collecting it and throwing it away, they should collect it and store it. In 20 years it will be an investment!"

Joke aside we are facing dire times. And I think we passed the "no return point" so whatever we can do now is to try and diminish the effects on the long run.

The weather has gone crazy and unfortunately, we, the snow lovers, are the first to suffer. If you're a "heat lover" I'm sure you'll enjoy global warming and be glad that the road to perdition is paved with hot, blazing sun and generally, warmer weather.

Somehow, the cold weather season shifted, in Romania, from January to late February. Over here we were considering to be living in moderate weather, with snow and cold right on time for celebrating the Holidays. In 2019 we got a hot Christmas, with temperatures high enough that you could stay outside in a sweater and enjoy it. Spring-like temperatures have eaten more and more into our winters. Over here we are in the middle of a draught and we have barely seen some snow this year, except for the mountains. Temperatures were so high until now that I was expecting mosquitos.

And when real snow hits the mountains, also winds are starting to pile up over there, making the ski season a total "splash". Two days ago we had the mountains under a red code for wind. There were bursts of 150-170 km/h in some areas and in those specific areas whole football fields of forests were taken down. Pine trees mostly. Hard to watch entire forests being brought down like matches sticks castles.

Up in Sinaia, our highest ski resort, mornings can be beautiful when the weather allows it. These photos were taken in late April last year. While I'm scared shit dead of heights, this is one of the few moments I want to face my fear. Generally, on mornings like this one, you can't see the top of the mountain from down below. It's being shaded by a thick layer of clouds. Dark below, sunny upstairs.

The moment the gondola pierces the clouds I feel no fear anymore (though the height it's still down below, right?!). It's a moment of serenity ascending that peak.

But now, during January, the winds are so high up there that no cable transport works. And you wouldn't want to be there anyway. It's no walk in the park if you get lost. Some trees that fell in the process of the "almost hurricane" we had to days ago, fell on some poles of the chairlift. I think we have 15 chairlifts in all Romania so the chances were pretty slim. But hey, we have a saying over here: "La omu sărac nici boii nu trag.". The translation would go like this: "Not even the ox want to pull on a poor man's cart."

That's just our luck: less snow, fewer trees, fewer chairlifts.

In search of snow, we strive for the Alps. Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland... that's where the snow still is, even though they complain about the same thing: it gets warmer with every year that passes.

"Do you wanna build a snowman... ?"