It was one o'clock on Friday afternoon when I heard about the 416 fire in Durango. I've checked in with friends, kept up with the various social media feeds, and listened attentively to the local public radio station. Last night I asked the universe to kindly send our evening thunderstorms out West for the remainder of the week, but so far my request has been denied. As of this morning, the 416 fire is covering 2,402 acres with 10% containment.

Protect Our Winters. If you're a snowboarder, skier, ice climber, etc... you're probably familiar with POW. If you're an angler, you may not have heard of it. So, here's a brief history. POW is an organization founded by professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones. It began back in 2007 when Jones started to notice that many of the resorts where he'd been boarding for years were closing or having much shorter seasons due to lack of snow. The organization has grown over the years from a clutch of hardcore winter athletes to a large group of outdoor enthusiasts from many different areas, all impacted by lack of snow. The goal of the group is to educate people on the changing climate, promote community-based activism, and political advocacy.

So, why should anglers get involved with a 'snow organization?' Simply put, because a bad winter equals a bad summer. We need all that snow to rest on mountain tops and melt slowly into the rivers. We need the water levels to stay up and cold and clean. We need happy, healthy trout.

We all need winter.