The Snows of Mt. Tom: Dire Warnings from the Sierra Nevada

Jill: Mom, there’s snow on Mt. Tom!
Mom: It’ll still be there on the weekend.
Jill: Don’t make me go to school today. It’s the first day of snow. There’s snow on Mt. Tom!

– The Other Side of the Mountain, Universal Pictures, 1975

The snow has not yet come to Mt. Tom.

It is one more thing in the year 2020, our annus horriblis.

The Eastern Sierra, with a 13,658-foot, snow-crested Mt. Tom as its showpiece, towers above the Owens Valley community of Bishop, CA. (Photo: Gary Young.)

And as the days march into November, the residents of Bishop, CA, where I was raised, look with an increasing sense of dread toward the great pyramidic peak that dominates the nearly 14,000-foot Eastern Sierra escarpment that towers above the northern reach of Owens Valley.

The first dusting of snow atop Mt. Tom has long been a time of celebration. It was certainly a thrill for Bishop’s homegrown national ski champion and Olympic hopeful Jill Kinmont, as depicted in her biopic The Other Side of the Mountain. And it remains so today for residents, young and old, of this community — small and remote, but blessed with an unparalleled abundance of natural beauty.

The first snow sometimes surprises in late August, but more typically arrives between mid-September and the first week of October. It is indeed a thrill to awaken on a crisp autumn morning, look toward the Sierra Crest, and see Mt. Tom’s…