Driving eleven hours to my family’s Thanksgiving so my dog could come seemed like a good idea. Mom called last minute and asked me to pick up my cousin along the way. I haven’t seen Meredith in over a decade. She’s in college now, hard to believe.

“Sure,” I said, thinking it would be nice to have someone to split the cost of gas with. 

Meredith talked most of the way to the Front Range while I drove in and out of icy conditions. Deep snow blanketed the peaks already, though most of the valleys below 8,000 feet were dry.

“I don’t like my roommate much,” Meredith said.

Good thing I didn’t try driving over this pass last night.

“She’s dating a high schooler. It’s gross! He looks twelve. I mean he’s seventeen, so it’s legal. I think.”

The ski resort reported eighteen new inches in the last twenty four hours. That would’ve been hell to drive through. 

“Oh my god what if it’s not legal? I’m Googling it. Ugh, there’s no service,” Meredith said, tossing her phone on the seat in between us. Most of the pavement was visible until we passed 9,000 feet, then it disappeared under a thin sheet of ice. The sky spit snow as my truck chugged along through the whiteout conditions. 

When’s the last time the plow came through here?

“She pretty much never leaves the dorm room.”

 I hope the other side of the pass is clear. Going downhill on ice ain’t my cup of tea. 

“She’s always on the phone with her boyfriend. On speaker phone! I told her to get some headphones.”

Fourteen inches of fresh snow on top of thirty inches on the ground. That’s pretty good for November. 

“She should really get a new boyfriend, not headphones.”

Come June, all this snow will melt into the San Juan River.

“But I try to stay out of other people’s business, you know? It’s not my problem.”

All this snow will melt and flow east, eventually into the Colorado River and end up trapped in Lake Powell. 

“But their conversations are on speaker phone! So I hear what they’re saying to each other.”

None of this water will ever make it to the Gulf of California. Not anymore.

“He’s not nice to her at all. He tells her she’s being stupid and demands that she come home every weekend.”

We need a good snowpack if the reservoir is going to have any chance of making it another fifty years. 

 “He never visits her. Not once has he ever come up to campus.”

I doubt it will make it that long. But hey, this snow is something. If it keeps snowing like this all winter, maybe we’ll have a good spring run off.

“Which is weird, because if I were dating a college girl when I was in high school, I would totally go to campus.” 

Just need enough water in Powell to launch my boat. 

“I mean, their parents are home, right? At least in college, you can do whatever you want,” Meredith said, picking up her phone again. 

Patches of blue sky ahead…maybe we’ll drive out of the storm on the way down. 

“Ugh, it says I have one bar but nothing will load!” Meredith sighed loudly. My hands never let go of the steering wheel, nor did my eyes dare leave the road. Checking my rearview mirror twice, I merged into the left lane to pass a semi-truck.

Thank God I’m not driving that thing. 

“I requested a new roommate, but the R.A. said we have to work it out. I don’t see that happening,” Meredith scoffed. 

10,000 feet. Almost at the top of the pass. 

“Oh, and she threw a shoe at me. Did I tell you that?” 

I shook my head as we passed the official sign denoting the top of the pass. Just 144 feet shy of 11,000 feet in elevation. On the top of the sign, The Continental Divide letters poked out from underneath an eight foot tall snow bank.

“Because I told her to dump her boyfriend and get a college life!” 

Now all this snow melt will flow east into the Rio Grande, toward the Gulf of Mexico. 

“I mean I said it nicely, but she freaked out.” 

Such a long way all this snow will travel.

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