The potguts have hibernated at my house. While that’s probably not the most important news of the week, it somehow seems significant.  They normally are around until mid-August. In fact Aug. 15 is so predictable that you could safely bet on that year after year.  This year they vanished on Aug. 1. They have been off schedule all year, coming out of hibernation on March 20 — and why not, since winter was over long before then? But that was nearly a month early.  The hibernation doesn’t seem gradual. It’s like they had some kind of potgut convention where they took a vote and decided that Saturday was it. f their typical cycle is to be out and about gorging themselves for about 120 days, I guess this year they hit the mark in late July. It seems right on plan, to the dismay of some hungry coyotes. Once they get fat enough to high center, there’s nothing left to do but sleep it off. I have no idea what the typical range of a potgut is. I suspect they don’t travel far, and that each group of potguts is seriously inbred, with a schedule distinct within each colony.  Friends in Silver Creek, another potgut stronghold, said theirs also hibernated on about the same schedule. I have not heard a report from the Tiger Woods golf course, which is a potgut paradise.  The marmots, technically the yellow-bellied marmots, have their own schedule. It’s similar to the potguts, but they are still around, packing on the pounds.  The deer have set up camp in the back yard. That usually happens in mid-September when the food and water run out up higher. I guess it’s pretty slim pickings on the upper ranges already. It’s probably the drought, but the aspen leaves around my place have dried out and become sort of crunchy even if they are still green. There’s no getting around it, though, the season is turning.  I don’t know if an early potgut hibernation portends a strong winter. I hope it does.  The scientists who make up the weather forecasts are all foaming at the mouth because we have a “super El Nino” condition in the Pacific Ocean. When pressed for what that means for the winter locally, as in whether skiing will be better than last season (a low bar), the answer is always a definitive shrug. Charts and graphs and a century of data, and the best they can come up with is “we don’t know.” For this they are paid significant money.  You want to know what the weather will be like in the next week? Call somebody in Reno and ask them to look out the window. If you want to know what the weather will look like in January, consult a Ouija board. I still believe in the hornet nest theory, but it’s too early for the hornets to be building their big nests yet. So for now, all we have to go on is an early potgut hibernation and scientific shrugs. The drought drags on despite Park City having the wettest July on record. The storms were very localized. Park City got poured on, but 15 miles away it was blue sky. Some days Francis had water running down the streets and Kamas was dry.  Mostly my place was just dry. Oklahoma in the 1930s dry. The flow in the Provo River, according to a gauge just down the road from my house, is about 44 cubic feet per second. The 60-year median is about 100 cubic feet. That’s bad enough, but of that 44 cfs, about half of it is releases from the Uinta lakes. Without those small reservoirs, the flow would be measurable in a shot glass.  Maybe we will rescue the Great Salt Lake next year, but it’s not happening now. The golf courses are still emerald green, and the only thing slowing the construction of new homes is mortgage rates. Three thousand houses in Browns Canyon? No problem. I’ve never been good at math, but something seems wrong with this formula. A big winter would do a lot of good, and a series of big winters, even “normal” winters, might put things a little closer to getting back on track. The drought cycle is about 20 years old now, and it will take more than a couple of good years to reverse it, with no guarantees that it won’t continue for another 20 years.  Another winter like last will cause some lasting damage environmentally and economically. But there’s nothing we can do about it but try to adapt. All those private bowling alleys in the catacombs of the mansions suddenly don’t look so ridiculous if there’s no snow to ski on. They won’t support the local economy. We might have to rely on pickleball for that.    The intrepid leadership at Vail Resorts isn’t taking this laying down. They have just named Bill Hornbuckle to their board of directors. He’s been the CEO of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and also the T-Mobile stadium.  hat seems like a perfect solution to improving the disappointing on-mountain experience.  Making ski resorts more like Las Vegas should fix it. Maybe we can get Wayne Newton to entertain at the Red Pine Lodge. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: The potguts have hibernated appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less