It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Drive a couple miles, walk out into the sage, and see if the pipeline company that got their operations shut down actually did run off and leave their pipeline ditch wide open for the winter.

A potentially lethal trap for any wild or domestic critter that happened to walk by unawares, at night, on a dead run, or in blinding snow.

When we discussed the plan, the fresh snow on the sidewalks was starting to melt. Must've been at least 20 degrees (F). Our warmest day in weeks. And so, after lunch, I load the heelers in the truck and we head out.

And immediately run into this.

Where did this ground blizzard come from?

I follow the paved road to the gas plant, where the guard sits alone in his or her tiny shack by the gate, and then charge off into the desert. Following the path beat in by the pipeline crews months ago.

Which is rapidly drifting in.

I can't see it from the county road, but I am soon at the work site. And wisely leave the heelers in the rig.

And step out into the blizzard.

Immediately my forehead starts to ache from the cold. And I put my shoulder into the gale and stumble on into the sage.

The pipeline is easy to find.

There's no open ditch at this particular spot, but geez... you can't see but 50 yards of the line.

I feel like I'm braving the Arctic, but a quick look back shows I've barely left the truck.

Turning into the wind I can see equipment and a berm of snow which may or may not be hiding dug dirt and open ditch. But there's no way I'm making that short hike.

A fellow died in town last month in one of our ground blizzards.

On a residential street.

I'll drive.

The second hike to the ridges and equipment is every bit as difficult as the first. With ice underfoot, to boot.

The equipment is a ditch digger itself.

Inactive and unattended, but its diesel engine gently chugging away in idle. Gotta keep them running to keep the fuel from freezing up, and the engine from seizing.

I scale the nearby ridge of snow, and am thrown back by the wind screaming across the flats from the hills above. You could have twenty open ditches out there, and I couldn't see them.

I'll come back tomorrow.

Maybe.

(More blizzard. Anyone want to guess which way our prevailing winds come from?)