Snowpocalypse 2010: The Snow Pile at 2603BOW

(My first post as a contributor on Bonnie’s blog… how exciting!)

In case you didn’t notice, it snowed quite a bit this past week.  I don’t have exact numbers, but the latest statistic I heard was 55″ of snow during the two storms… and that the area between Baltimore and DC (aka “where I live”) got hit the hardest.  Work was canceled for the first four days this week — No word yet whether we’ll have work tomorrow.

Living in a neighborhood where garage-less townhouses and their parking spots line both sides of the street, there aren’t many places for 55″ of street- and car snow to go.  The plows came, but not frequently enough, and much of the plowing left us with higher piles behind our cars.  Some neighbors sacrificed one of their two parking spots as a snow depository… some sacrificed car access by piling all the snow behind one car.  With three roommates and two visitors, we didn’t have spots or cars to spare.  As a result, we — and most of our neighbors — needed to relocate the snow to our front yards… and our front yards aren’t that big.  When you have to pile street- and car snow onto a 15′ x 15′ yard and keep it off the sidewalk/pathways, the pile gets very tall very quickly.

One of our neighbors was extremely industrious and seemingly shoveled more than he slept.  Since our car spots are not directly in front of our houses, as he cleaned of his cars, the snow ended up on our lawn.  I was happy for his snow to end up there because he often cleared the sidewalk in front of our house, too.  Those occupying 2603BOW (short for 2603 Barred Owl Way) for the weekend all cleaned off their cars and also contributed to the pile.  By the end of Sunday night, the pile was probably 10 feet high.  However, you couldn’t easily walk on it because the snow was soft and you’d fall right through.

At this point, I set two goals:
1) I will have a pile I can stand on.
2) I will have the tallest pile in my subdivision.

The goals were somewhat contradictory — in order to have a pile I could stand on, I’d need to compact the snow, making the pile smaller.  In order to make the pile bigger, I’d need to add more uncompacted snow.  I love a good challenge.

After two days of work, the pile was complete, and it was both the tallest and the sturdiest in the community.  I stood at the top, proud.  With my short attention span, that only lasted for a few moments before I started coming up with loftier goals:  I wanted this pile to be functional… and I wanted something to do during the week when work would inevitably be canceled.  The result was goal number three:

3) I will build a snow slide.

Over the week, with the additional 18″ of snow we received on Tuesday night, and over four snow days, I had the time and materials to achieve this goal with flying colors.

The snow slide ended up be about 10 feet tall (fully compacted) — and the slide is more than 15 feet long.  I “iced” the stairs and slide a few times to make them sturdier.  (“Icing” consisted of pouring water on the snow and compacting it more — allowing it to freeze again, sturdier than before.)  The slide includes a bank/turn that returns you to the sidewalk rather than the road.  There are snow stairs that are sturdy enough for me to climb repeatedly.  Tomorrow, if work gets canceled again, I plan on completing the second set of stairs (from the other side) and “icing” the slide one more time.

Here’s are five videos of of the slide… they’ll play one right after the other.

Anyone want to make bets about when this monster will finally melt?  I’m thinking it might make it to next winter.. 🙂

Blizzard of December 09

Plans to head up to NJ for the weekend were foiled, but it sure is pretty… (especially when your neighbor has a snowblower and clears out your driveway!)

Back Deck

Snowed In