Things are looking really good to me. I delivered about a half ton of supplies to the Taj Mahal this morning without getting stuck or even cutting into the ground much with my van.

The snow is essentially all gone. I was able find a little bit of snow but I had to look for it and it is likely to be gone by Boomershoot time.

I’ll post pictures tonight or tomorrow.

Update 1453: Live blogging from the Boomershoot site.

I’ve verified the problem with our “well” is that it doesn’t have any water in it rather than a problem with the pump or the pipe. I put about five gallons in it and I was able to pump water out just fine.

Boomershoot 2009 shirts and mugs are available here.

The image is:

Two weeks out and there is still snow–via email from brother Doug this morning:

The snow is mostly gone. Still some on the north slopes, but a lot of that has melted in the last few days. It is supposed to get cold and snow again today and tomorrow, but be warm and sunny by the end of the week.

I’ll be onsite next Saturday and/or Sunday and report back then. Only a week out the forecasts will be pretty accurate and I will be able to tell you what sort of conditions we will have. Expect mud. Especially for my staff placing targets at the tree line.

I had another cancellation.

There are two positions now available. One in the Lowlands (#16) and one in the Main area (#29) next to a bunch of gun bloggers.

Sign up here.

Last Sunday I visited the Boomershoot site to check out the snow conditions and do a little bit of prep work. The pictures mostly speak for themselves. Compare to the pictures I took the week before. And the same time last year.

View from the entrance to the shooting area.

View from standing on the shooting berm at about position 50.

The north (shooters area) side of the shooting berm. The snow is 16 inches deep in places.

This is the culvert that was overflowing the week before. Yes, those are my snowshoe tracks.

Here is where we build the targets.

Just some of the mouse damage. I’m taking rodent poison with me the next time I go.

Mouse nest in the explosives magazine.

There were seven baby mice in the nest I threw out into the snow. Micecicles for the birds. The two adults got away.

Position #47 is filled.

Positions #29 and #30 are now both open.

There are some restrictions on position #29. Position #29 will be in use on Friday and Saturday. You will not be able to set up in that position until sometime on Saturday evening. On Sunday position #29 will be covered with a canopy provided by and shared with the people in positions #25 -> #28.

Sign up here.

Update: Position #30 was taken in about 90 minutes. Position #29 would probably be gone in seconds if I said who took position #30. But privacy matters so I won’t.

Position 7 is filled but I had another cancellation due to a spouse with cancer having surgery the day after Boomershoot.

Position 47 is now open. Sign up here.

We had another cancellation.

Position 7 is now open. Sign up here:

http://entry.boomershoot.org/

Update: Gone in under two hours.

Ry’s asshole dial goes to 11.

I think I’ll let him try it.

Currently the temperature is 48F, up from 46F about 30 minutes ago. The sun is out with only a few wispy clouds in the sky.

In places there are still 16 inches of snow or more in the shooters area. I’m sure there is deeper snow near the Taj where I am now. My biggest concern now is the transportation of 400 pounds of potassium chlorate from the road to the Taj. The shooters can bring appropriate gear and will be able to cope but if we can’t make the targets in a timely manner things won’t be near as fun. Worse case I can probably bring it in via ATV and trailer in five gallon containers. But overall transportation of people and targets to/from the Taj could be an issue. Another option is to bring the bulldozer over a week before the event and clear a road through the snow. Assuming the weather is decent the exposed ground should dry out.

At this point, three weeks from the event, I’m resigned to there being significant snow in places. It could be 70F and the sun shining on the day of the event but there, almost for certain, will be more snow on the ground than there was last year. And last year was the first time we had snow on the ground for Boomershoot in all ten years there has been a Boomershoot here. And we have held Boomershoot as early as April 15th before.

Damn you Al Gore! This is all your fault! [Just kidding.]

Update: More bad news.

• The “well” doesn’t appear to have any water in it. We will have to bring water for cleaning up the target manufacturing equipment. And I’ll have to get it fixed this summer.
  
• A family of mice got into the explosives magazine and chewed up a bunch of target boxes. I didn’t have as many boxes as I finally decided I wanted anyway. I’ll probably order some more tomorrow.
  
• The Internet connection is still flaky. Not as bad as I have seen it with the old equipment but it still drops out frequently even though the signal strength appears to be strong just before and just after it dies.

Boomershoot 2009 is now less than four weeks away.

Last weekend (five weeks from the event) I visited the site and found there was still lots of snow but it was melting fast. Comparing the pictures from five weeks prior last year and last weekend things looked pretty close to the same:

The difference was that it was up to 54F during the afternoon last weekend and there was a lot of runoff with culverts overflowing and the creek near flood stage:

This is the culvert I installed a few years ago.

The culvert here is running full and the excess is running over the entrance to the field.

The creek is at near maximum capacity.

In the morning I walked to the Taj Mahal figuring I wouldn’t need snowshoes because the snow by the road was only about ankle deep. As I got onto the north slope near the trees at the Taj the snow was over knee deep and because it was so warm my feet went all the way through it to the ground. It was a lot of work and in the afternoon I put on my snowshoes before walking in.

But it turns out I was trading one type of work for another. Because the top layer of snow is essentially slush it would push right through the webbing of the snowshoes and ride on the top of them.

I had what felt like 10 pounds of weight (probably more like five) above and beyond the snowshoes that I had to lift with each step.

Before reporting all this I decided I would wait a week and see if the warm weather continued. It was possible that by this weekend the snow would be, essentially, all gone.

It didn’t work out that way.

Monday it never got above 28F.

On Tuesday I received a Winter Storm Watch for Boomershoot country:

Here is a current Winter Storm Watch for Boomershoot (Lenore, ID) until 10:00pm, Wed Mar 25 2009, from your local National Weather Service office.

URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MISSOULA MT
318 AM MDT TUE MAR 24 2009

…EARLY SPRING SNOW STORM TO IMPACT THE NORTHERN ROCKIES LATE TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT…

.A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE SOUTH FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA INTO THE NORTHERN ROCKIES THIS EVENING THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING. HEAVY MOUNTAIN SNOW IS POSSIBLE ACROSS NORTHWEST AND WEST CENTRAL MONTANA AS WELL AS CENTRAL IDAHO. SURFACE WINDS WILL BECOME NORTHERLY AS THE SYSTEM PASSES. THIS COULD PROVIDE GOOD UPSLOPE LIFT AND POSSIBLE MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW ACCUMULATIONS TO THE CAMAS PRAIRIE AREA IN NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO BY LATE WEDNESDAY.

OROFINO/GRANGEVILLE REGION-LOWER HELLS CANYON/SALMON RIVER REGION- 218 AM PDT TUE MAR 24 2009 …WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM THIS EVENING THROUGH WEDNESDAY EVENING… MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW ALONG WITH GUSTY WINDS ARE POSSIBLE WITH THIS STORM. 8 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW ARE POSSIBLE ON THE CAMAS PRAIRIE…AS WELL AS THE THE WHITE BIRD GRADE AND GREER GRADES.

Notice that it says “through Wednesday Evening”? Wednesday morning I had received several more updates with the last saying:

…WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 AM PDT THURSDAY ABOVE 2500 FEET…

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MISSOULA HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW ABOVE 2500 FEET…WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 5 AM PDT THURSDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 12 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE ON THE CAMAS PRAIRIE…AS WELL AS THE WHITE BIRD AND GREER GRADES. THE HEAVIEST SNOW IS EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING…BUT INCREASING WESTERLY WINDS THIS MORNING WILL CAUSE BLOWING SNOW AND REDUCED VISIBILITIES AT TIMES.

Notice it says “above 2500 feet”? Boomershoot is at 3000 feet.

Thursday it warmed up again into the mid 40s.

Friday the storm warnings started coming in again with four to eight inches of snow predicted. Saturday, as I was having my snow tires removed and the summer tires put on, the snow storm hit Moscow (my home, 40 miles west of Boomershoot and 400 feet lower in elevation). This morning we had 3.5 inches of snow in Moscow and it was still snowing.

Although I didn’t visit the site this weekend I’m nearly certain we have more snow this year at four weeks out than we did last year at five weeks out. And, if you remember, last year we had a white Boomershoot.

The extended forecast for this week is for the low to be 37F on Tuesday the highs in the 50s through Monday. So the new snow and some of the old could be gone by this time next week. But I don’t trust weather forecasts more than about three days out.

It could be you will need snowshoes for Boomershoot 2009. I don’t even have enough for my own staff. You will have to bring your own.

Via Ry I found some great articles on explosives:

• Water Acts As Catalyst In Explosives


• Explosives At The Microscopic Scale Produce Shocking Results


• High Powered New Explosive Developed

There are more but I have to get ready for work.

I replaced most of the Wi-Fi gear at the Boomershoot site and things appear to be working well. There have been no drop outs.

We have full signal strength on my laptop at the intersection of the creek and the road. All places that I have tested have higher signal strength than before I need to get my signal strength mapping software out here and remap the area.

Lots of snow still but it got up to 54F this afternoon and it’s still 44F at 1740. The snow is melting fast. That means there is lots of water in the low areas.

A week ago today I whined about the ATF being technically challenged as I was trying to get clearance for the Boomershoot staff (and some bloggers) to handle explosives.

Last night I got a call from daughter Kim saying I got a letter from them. “Open it up!” I said. She did and told me that all of the people I requested clearance on, except for three, were approved. Those three are pending and are allowed to handle explosives until I am told otherwise.

I am flabbergasted. That was awesome “service”.

While I am of the opinion the ATF should be a convenience store rather than a regulatory agency I must admit they did their job well and without causing me pain once they actually got the paperwork in hand.

Thanks guys.