Karen just returned from a trip to Japan. She hurt her lower back muscles carrying luggage plus snowboards, skis, helmets, ski boots and heavy winter clothes. Her husband, Jeff, was there for an international cross-country ski race. The race was canceled due to insufficient snow. Climate crisis.

Ironically, it snowed the day after the race. Jeff cross-country skied on sidewalks instead.

"Japan is a Kathleen country," Karen said. "It's so clean! Nobody litters."

To give Karen a break, today's hike was easy: 5.5 miles with 1,000 feet of elevation gain. I didn't let her bend down and pick up anything.

We used micro-spikes because of hard pack ice on the trail. It felt like Spring! To stay off the ice, we walked on the side of the trail on dirt and soft snow where we could.

Still, my feet shot out from under me and Wham! landed on an elbow. Shook it off. After that, I scrambled down steep hillsides off-trail as much as possible.

It felt like Spring. Plants are coming up, grass is green and Willow trees have new yellow leaves. Oh, no!

Low snow means less water, drought and worse wildfires.