Longmire (Sheridan, Buffalo, Big Horn: fit in, crime, school)

[nicolevm]

Funny! I stumbled on this thread because I had just watched the first couple of episodes of "Longmire" and promptly wanted to live in Wyoming! And yes I knew it was a show and not a documentary but everything was so pretty and all the men in Wranglers....aaagghhhh....anyway. Thanks for the reality check. Back to dreaming.

Nicole

[Froggie Legs]

Hi folks... had a hard drive crash a while back and hadn't gotten around to poking my nose in to see what's new until now. I did have a chance to read the first Longmire book of the series..and yep, it isn't like the show, much...actually preferred the television series, oddly enough. I found the written version didn't flow very well (but maybe since it was his first of the series I should cut him some slack).

Anyway.. I won't read through much of this thread as we can't watch the current season until it comes out online or on Netflix. But I will say my dad is hooked on this series too

[ScottStielow]

I watch every week out here in Aiea Hawaii at 7 pm local time on Monday.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by sunsprit

......

OTOH, Longmire is marketed as being the "real deal" about the story lines and characters in the present day. Put this in light of the promotion in Buffalo, which ties the series to Wyoming in the present day.

Again, follow so many of the threads on this forum and understand where folk get their misconceptions about climate, water, minerals, ranching, farming, and life in general is like out here ... it's coming from this type of marketing and stories. Even the snowfall in several scenes in the first season simply wasn't Wyoming snow, it was pretty and drifting downward ........

Now you've got my curiosity up. Just what IS Wyoming snow?

I like the Longmire novels, and I enjoy the TV series, even if I was disappointed that it isn't filmed in WY.

WY is on my bucket list, and I WILL be up to visit one of these days, either from my native TX or CO.

[KillerK]

Wyoming snow tends to fall sideways due to the constant wind. And it's a very fine, dry powdery snow so when the wind blows it almost looks more like a white dust storm than a snowfall. So when it is actually snowing it's not usually very pleasant. Super pretty once the storm's over and the air/sky is clear again, though.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by KillerK

Wyoming snow tends to fall sideways due to the constant wind. And it's a very fine, dry powdery snow so when the wind blows it almost looks more like a white dust storm than a snowfall. So when it is actually snowing it's not usually very pleasant. Super pretty once the storm's over and the air/sky is clear again, though.

Thanks for the clarification. We consider NM snow dry (which it is compared to the Midwest/East Coast), but I guess WY would be even more so.

If WY weren't so far from home and family, I would have definitely given it a second look for retirement. I'm going to have to bite the bullet one of these years, and spend both a summer and a winter somewhere up there just to see what it's like.

I've never been in anything colder than -20 (CO).

[Wardendresden]

Originally Posted by Froggie Legs

Hi folks... had a hard drive crash a while back and hadn't gotten around to poking my nose in to see what's new until now. I did have a chance to read the first Longmire book of the series..and yep, it isn't like the show, much...actually preferred the television series, oddly enough. I found the written version didn't flow very well (but maybe since it was his first of the series I should cut him some slack).

Anyway.. I won't read through much of this thread as we can't watch the current season until it comes out online or on Netflix. But I will say my dad is hooked on this series too

Over the course of the series Johnson's writing has improved dramatically.

Early on there is some difficulty following the "flashbacks" that occur in Walt's head, so that it is darn near impossible to tell when you are in the past and when you are in the present. But at last I figured out that that is sometimes how WE are. We become spaced out by thinking of something else or someone else until something happens to bring us back into the present. So maybe's Johnson's writing style is giving us a bit of a picture on how we live inside our heads.

But the novels are not reflected in the television show. Skipped entirely are the brief affair with Vic, the fact that Kate lives primarily in Philadelphia and eventually falls for Vic's brother, a Philadelphia cop, and many of the Indian friends--and a few enemies--that Walt has.

Still, I don't miss any episodes of the TV series while having read all the novels!

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

Thanks for the clarification. We consider NM snow dry (which it is compared to the Midwest/East Coast), but I guess WY would be even more so.

If WY weren't so far from home and family, I would have definitely given it a second look for retirement. I'm going to have to bite the bullet one of these years, and spend both a summer and a winter somewhere up there just to see what it's like.

I've never been in anything colder than -20 (CO).

Most NM snow is powder snow ... similar in moisture content to what we see in WY due to being at similar altitudes and temp ranges in the mountain areas.

The difference is that WY has much higher average wind speeds and instant gusts that prevail during a snow storms passage.

The result is that the wind-driven snow rarely "falls", it is blown sideways. Even after the snowfall has stopped, the winds continue to blow the snow around so the visibility continues to be reduced. This is a process which can continue for days after snowfall has stopped, creating difficult driving conditions as well as obscured roads which need to be plowed to even find the road.

Wind-blown drifts can be quite high and accumulate dense wind-packed snow. The drifts can become a significant issue around buildings and structures; for example, our couple hundred yard long driveway to the house can form 4 of these drifts across it in a modest snowfall. The driveway can be blown almost clear in spots, but the drifts can be as high as the top of our 4x4 pick-up hood, 5'-6' wide, and 20'-30' long.

You don't bash your way through those drifts to the road adjacent, it takes clearing them with equipment. At that, I've had more than one night when I've been confident that I'd clear the forming drifts in the AM with my JD4020Diesel tractor/loader that was plugged in so it would start in the AM ... and come out in the morning to find that the prevailing winds of that storm had blown a drift over the tractor, burying it up to ... if not over ... the cab. It's not uncommon to find pasture fences totally buried for many yards, if not a 1/2 mile, in the drifts. The drifts are so wind-packed that the livestock can walk over the fences that aren't there anymore to block them. I've got shelter belt trees around my house/barns area, and it's not uncommon for the 20' high trees to be totally buried for most of a winter around here with sloping drifts 100' wide leading up to the peaks ... and that's in the recent drought years of minimal winter snowfall.

One thing you'll notice in WY when driving many of the major roads through the windy areas ... are the "wind fences" for the snow. These are located to capture the prevailing wind driven snowdrifts away from the roadway. They are of two varieties: 1) planted stands of trees (in otherwise treeless areas) to create a shelter belt, or 2) wooden structures that look like the bleacher supports. You'll see the wooden structures run for many yards, sometimes well over a 1/4 mile ... and oft-times, multiple structures linked together or overlapping so as to create a wind fence for miles along a roadway. It's noticeably absent in scenes of Longmire in NM.

[jody_wy]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

Thanks for the clarification. We consider NM snow dry (which it is compared to the Midwest/East Coast), but I guess WY would be even more so.

If WY weren't so far from home and family, I would have definitely given it a second look for retirement. I'm going to have to bite the bullet one of these years, and spend both a summer and a winter somewhere up there just to see what it's like.

I've never been in anything colder than -20 (CO).

here in western Wyoming we have all kinds of snow , skiffs, corn , sleet, wet big flakes , sideways , straight down, usually it doesn't snow below zero that just frost falling out of the air... on the ground we get powder , wet potato mush, deep , drifts, and hard crusts in spring that will hold up a car.....

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by jody_wy

here in western Wyoming we have all kinds of snow , skiffs, corn , sleet, wet big flakes , sideways , straight down, usually it doesn't snow below zero that just frost falling out of the air... on the ground we get powder , wet potato mush, deep , drifts, and hard crusts in spring that will hold up a car.....

That's a good description of the Star Valley and localized areas up towards Jackson Hole and the NW corner of the state where the wind/weather patterns are mellower ....

Very much not the case across most of the state where the winds howl .... deep drifts, hard crusts on wind-packed snow, but not the high moisture content types of snow. Altitude plays a role in this, too.

But a primary story line in Longmire is the close-by indian reservation ... which puts the locale in an entirely different area of the state than the Star Valley.

It's as much a disconnect as seeing a wrong firearm used in the story line ...