Where The White Goes

    I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.

                                                    Mae West

 

 Probably the most asked question we locals hear from newcomers to Crested Butte is undoubtedly "Just where does the white go when the snow melts?"

 Now we do get asked some odd questions up here....to name a few:

"At what altitude do the deer turn into elk?"

" Where do we meet some 'nice' girls?"

"What do you do with the man made snow in the summer?"

"Would you take a out of town check?"

"Where do you make the moguls?"

 

 But the one about where the white went finally got me thinking....an odd occurrence in itself. I had just assumed it went back to the north pole where it belonged. Then I started wondering just where the white came from in the FIRST place. I mean if snow is frozen water why isn't ice white?

 So I looked up 'snow' in the Encyclopedia Americana:

 "An assemblage of ice granules." It said

Duuuhhh.

 So I looked up 'white' in Webster.

"The achromatic object color of greatest lightness characteristically perceived

of objects that reflect diffusely all incident energy throughout the visible spectrum."

 So.....there we had it.....pretty darn impressive, old Webster.

But just what was Webster trying to say?

 I decided to call up my old pal Lonesome Bob Brazell, photographer extraordinare, who would know exactly what a diffusely reflected incident of energy was.

 "Ello Bob, its your old pal Church...."

 "WHEN ARE YOU GONNA FINISH MY DECK YOU STARTED 3 YEARS AGO...???!!"

 "Listen Bob, I've got a very important question....Where does the white go, when the snow melts?"

 "It just goes."

 Bob has always been very descriptive...

 "Why is snow white, Bob?"

 "Cause God likes it white..."

 "Lookee here Bob, as a professional photographer what would you say made the snow white?'

 "It's the reflection of light off the gathered crystals. If you took just one crystal it would be clear, but together they reflect light. Every second grader knows this Church."

 "I knew that." I said & hung up.

 "Ha!!" If he was so smart how come snow is white at night?

 What a dummy....I'd have to check elsewhere.

 

Snow is formed by condensation of water vapor to ice without ever being liquid. This is called 'sublimation' by the scientific guys & 'damn cold' by the rest of us. The nucleus of the flake is 0.00005 of an inch or 'very small'. When these 'very small' particles are suspended in the atmosphere ice crystals form on them, always 6 sided,(because crystals of ice belong to the hexagonal system of crystallization), & it's true, no two are ever exactly alike. Now at this point the little flake-etts pick up enough weight to start falling toward earth, but, pay attention now, they still have no color. That's right, individually they are as clear as glass. But you get a bunch of em together into what we call a 'snow storm' the buggers turn white. White as the driven snow we are constantly saying. The biggest flake ever recorded, by the way, was 3 & one half inches, hitting the windshield of one Jim Brophy at 4;00 in the morning Jan. 8 1982, however Brophy was 'unable' to keep from eating it on the spot.

 

 Throughout history extensive studies of snow have been taken on by trust fund types with plenty of time on their hands. For instance in 977 A.D. Han Ying of China wrote the haunting poem T'ai p'ing Yu Lan which goes:

 "Flowers have five petals,

 but only snow crystals have six."

 Quite moving really, wouldn't you agree?.... especially if it would have rhymed....

 Olaus Magnus (1490-1558) made the first sketch of a snow flake, but of course every 2nd grader knows this. An observant Frenchman, Rene' Descartes in1635 again noticed snowflakes were six sided. Then William Scoresby, a diverse English whaler, put together a book of snowflake patterns when he wasn't slaughtering the greatest beast on earth. Wilson Bentley (1865-1931) devoted his ENTIRE LIFE to photographing snowflakes & ended up with 6000 decent shots...or the most boring slide show on earth, according to his wife.

 'The' doctor of snow however was one Dr. Ukichiro Nakaya who actually in 1946, on a government grant, with a team of highly trained specialists, was able to...get this now.... MAKE A SNOWFLAKE! The good Dr. recognizing a decent grant when he got one went on to categorize every snowflake in the universe. In his riveting publication "Snow Crystals, Natural & Artificial" one can discover such flakes as the 'dendritic with plate', or the 'spatial radiating', or one of my favorites, 'the lump'.

 However, in the past thousands of years of snow study, in the hundreds of publications on the subject, there is not ONE mention of where the white went.

 I decided to conduct my own study. I spent hours staring at snow banks, looking away slyly then quickly looking back. I thought perhaps it may be melting to slow for the human eye to detect. I placed large piles of snow in the oven & sat in front of that glass door recording every temperature. At least the white couldn't escape a closed oven. I rationalized

 About this time my wife left...saying she was just going to the store...that was 3 months ago.....something about a flake....

 Word got out on my study, I started receiving strange phone calls.

 O.J. Simpsons Lawyer, saying his client knew nothing about where the white went. Uncle Ben saying he had it. Then one day another photographer buddy, Paul Gallaher called to say that both white & black actually wanted to become gray, so they eventually just melt, or weaken into gray. That, he went on to say, is what became of the white elephant.

Then Paul said something that finally rang true. He said "But every 2nd grader knows that."

 "AH HA!!" says I. so that's where I'll find my answer...

 

 Unfortunately the second grade was closed for summer, the little geniuses probably home reprogramming their computers or performing simple brain surgery on the cat. I'd be forced to consult the pre-scholars down at Step-ing Stones Kid Center.

 A small herd of the colorful yard apes gathered about for the dumb question from the big nervous adult.

 Where the white went when the snow melted? Well what a ridiculous question.....

 Little Crystal Price called me over & whispered in my ear...

 "Up there." her eyes rolled reverently toward the ceiling...

 "You mean into the drywall?" I asked.

 "NO SILLY!" Up there...." She pointed through the drywall this time...

 Young David Porter from Irvine California took the floor...

 "The white evaporates into clouds, that's where clouds come from".

 David sat down to his murmuring classmates....

 "Californian"....They were mumbling "Clouds on the brain."

 Finally fed up with this feeble minded questioning 5 year old Randy Evans, & 3 year old Emily Smith rose to put the record straight.

"The White..." They stated mater of factly "Turns into green & it becomes spring....EVERYBODY knows this!"

 The kids bolted, I left the building....of course...I had known this all along.