"The Abominal Snowpack Man"

I just don't think I'd used flirtatious yet. Real mood? Bemused and mildly perturbed.

With all this shaking going on west of here, it got me to thinking about some of my on-going  broadcast journalism pet peeves. I'm going to focus on the media's role in perpetuating  myths. Some of the perpetuation is purposeful and harmless. Some of it is a little scary because it isn't purposeful.

Okay, earthquakes. Whenever there is an earthquake you go to one of three places in the U.S. to get your official information and measurements. One is a lab in Berkeley, another is Cal Tech in Pasadena and the third is the National Earthquake Information Center at the School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. Whoever the scientist or spokesperson  in front of camera is? He or she is standing in front of this big old paper drum with this huge needle sketching out a graph of the earth's movement. For the record it's called a seismograph. What we see, without understanding it, we relate to earthquakes.

Well about ten years ago I'm in Golden and the earth is shaking big time somewhere,and scientist-spokesperson Waverly Persons is standing in front of one of about 20 of these drums. I glanced around and noticed none of the other scientists were even peeking at any of the drums during a major world event? Instead they were all watching computer screens like it was the last quarter of the Super Bowl. Sometimes slow to get the point I ask Waverly if we couldn't explain to people at home how these seismographs work?

"Well we could Paul, but to tell you the truth we haven't used them in ten years."

Do the math and that comes out 20 years ago from now.

"Why are they here, then," I query.

"For you guys," says Waverly.

Apparently we guys hadn't noticed they'd gone to computer links, microprocessing, global positioning, fiber optics, etc. The scientists were "state of the art"  watching their computer screens, while we were, and still are, in buggies being pulled by horses. I don't think anybody has been trying to fool anyone on this one. More than anything I just think some group of us along the communication line is just too lazy to make the switch. For the record "Polygraphs" and  "Life Support Graphs" have gone through some changes of their own.

Let's move on to one of my favorite rants. This state feeds water to eleven states and Mexico. Other than  a  5 mile loop of the North Platte, Colorado gets no water from any of the other guys. So water is a big deal. And that water mostly comes from snowpack on the state's mountain peaks, more than 50 of which are higher than 14 thousand feet.

So there's this governmental body called the Natural Resource Conservation Service which has as part of its responsibilty the duty of keeping track of snowpack in 11 western states. There is a guy who works for them named Mike Gillespe, and I'm pretty sure Mike worked for a few other organzations or maybe the same one with different names. Anyway, every year for at least the past 25 years, on a day convenient to him, in the end of December or the first of January, he calls all the media together at the top of Berthoud Pass, elevation 11,307 ft.

Once there we  all put on snow shoes (provided by Mike Gillespe), most for the first time, and hike about a quarter of  a mile (maybe a little more)  in what is usually about 3 feet of snow. For those of you who are mostly flat landers a quarter of mile in steep terrain at 11 thousand feet is more than a quarter of  a mile.   And if it's your first time on snow shoes its more than five miles. And if you are lugging a camera and tripod with you,  we're talking half marathon.  But there is a reward at the end.

At the end you get to gather around in a circle, sopping wet and miserable, and watch Mike Gillespe stick this big long pole into the snow. But that's not all thrill seekers. We also get to watch him pull it out of the snow and then speak.

"Well folks it says we have three feet of snowpack, and let's see here, the moisture content is blah, blah, blah percent."

In near unison we scream with anticipation, "What does that mean Mike?"

Here is his direct verbatim response reported in the Rocky Mountain News the end of December 2004.

"It's good news, but it could be a lot better."

"Get to your cell phones, find an uplink, we've got to get this on the air. Tell the farmers, tell the water police, tell Mexico, the news may be good."

Those who've been on the journey know there is very little exaggeration employed here. So I hate to bust another balloon but the only snowpack measurements that count come in May when that snow starts to melt. That's not true for a ski area but the skihill manager can pretty much tell by looking how much snowpack he has.  But let's get to my real gripe.

Do you really think with today's technology we need to put on snowshoes and get miserable to measure snowpack?  The very organization Gillespe works for,  has more than 600 monitoring positions all over eleven states in the west. There are close to a hundred in Colorado. They are read by sattellites around the clock.  If you're ever interested the system is called Snotell and the web site is there for your perusal at any time.

I don't know what numbers Mike Gillespe would use to justify his January Jaunt pitting his winter prediction against summer reality? But I can tell you he wouldn't want to see my numbers. Yes I was ornery enough to keep a running list.

Isn't it obvious from just having me tell the story? Mike Gillespe likes to snow shoe. Mike Gillespe also harbors some deep resentment for the media and gets great pleasure from watching reporters and photographers writhe in pain.

You'd think I might be a hero in the industry for blowing Gillespe's scam wide open. But I can tell you from past attempts at an expose,  I've been shouted down by my peers.

"Let's see. Do I want to go to mountains for the day away from the station, or do I want to run around town shooting murders, New Year's celebration cleanups, the fire that burned down the only home the family had ever had, and destroyed all there holiday gifts. And do I want the assignment editor, and the producer yelling at me all day to hurry up and get that stuff back in house."

Mike Gillespe is not the only one who likes to snow shoe!