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Storms on the Peaks: Winter Wind

© B. J. Barton

"One winter I placed an air-meter in Granite Pass at 12,000 feet altitude on the slope of Long's Peak. During the first high wind I fought my way up to read what the meter said. Both the meter and myself found the wind exceeded the speed limit."

Fighting his way up across an area where the wind had swept the snow away, he was battered by sand and gravel, then knocked off his feet by a strong gust. He wrote, "On the last slope below the meter the wind simply played with me. I was over thrown, tripped, knocked down, blown explosively off my feet and dropped. Sometimes the wind dropped me heavily, but just as often it eased me down...At last I crawled and climbed up to the buzzing cups of the meter. So fast were they rotating they formed a blurred circle, like a fast revolving life-preserver. The meter showed the wind was passing with a speed of from one hundred and sixty five to one hundred and seventy miles per hour. The meter blew up--or rather, flew to pieces--during a swifter spurt."

Not satisfied with reaching this goal, Mills was drawn by the roaring wind to experience "...its wildest and most eloquent efforts" at the top of the peak, some 2000 mostly vertical feet further. He had to use all of his strength and skills to keep from being torn from the mountain, but found that the three or four almost level acres on top were strangely calm. Just a little below the top on the west side where the wind was striking full force, the booming sound was intense. He crept forward until his hat rose from his head and joined the updraft. It circled slowly upward and he threw a few small stones at it, hoping to knock it down, but it rose to about five or six hundred feet, then shot off toward the east.

The wind just took a serious bounce at the top of the mountains, then dropped down, creating its version of chaos, and continued eastward. When there is a low pressure area east of the mountains, the wind speeds up as it rushes downslope and compresses. This causes it to warm up. Indians called this a chinook, a "snow eater." Chinooks are fairly common along the Front Range between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs. Wind gusts over 100 mph are not unusual and often cause some property damage. However, most of us who have lived here for a while have fastened things down as much as we can and everything else is in Kansas by now.