Use protection to prevent snow blindness

In our neck of the woods this year’s weather is exceptionally warm and nice compared to last year’s record snowfall or the weather of more than 100 years ago.
    An article in the Jan. 30, 1903 issue of the Grand Encampment Herald notes, “Along the Continental Divide in southern Wyoming the depth of the snow fall has been increased to about eight feet on the average. The snow, being light, rapidly settles into a solid mass, almost solid ice, and it is generally estimated that ten feet of new snow will settle into one foot of solid.
    “By wrapping the big mountain range (Sierra Madres) in such an icy mantle, which often gets to be several feet thick before the winter is over, nature has provided a storehouse for irrigation which defies all the devices of man. Rivulets, ten thousand strong, flow out from under these icy banks to bless the crops in the valleys below, which planted in an arid country, would neither sprout or grow were it not for Nature’s generous assistance from the snowcapped peaks above.”
    The story continues, “When the sun shines bright upon the snow in the spring, many victims are tortured with a dose of ‘snow blind,’ which is certainly one of the features of dwelling in snow land that is not coveted.
    “Snow blind is treacherous and lasting and victims seldom fully recover. It is well to take every possible precaution against this calamity, and the man who is jeered because he puts on the black veil for the day’s trip is not so much a fool as the man who trusts his precious eyesight to the elements.”
    Story reprinted courtesy of Grandma’s Cabin, Encampment – “preserving history – serving the community.”