Bear Valley Climate

Bear Valley is an interesting place from a  number of perspectives.  Our weather man, Ben Brissey, says there are actually four complete seasonal sites around the mountains, and a local botanist told me there are four distinct types of fauna and flora.

Now just 12 miles away and at the same elevation, we have to watch out for these fellows.  Not my favorites, and if the picture is of a rattlesnake, and I'm not too sure about that, you don't want to bump into him.  And particularly his small offspring.  The babies are more dangerous than the adults as they don't yet know how to apportion the amount of venom they inject, and it can be lethal - particularly for dogs.  We have a house at the other end of the valley where we have a trellis around the deck so that the dogs can't chase anything dangerous in there and corner it.  The only snake I've seen over there was a dead one.  But I've been at the vets and seen owners come in with their dogs bitten.

I'm told there are even scorpions over there and I haven't seen any of them either, I'm glad to say.  One of the nice things however is that down here at the west end we have Stellars's Jays which are cheerful medium-sized birds with a wonderful crew cut.  At the east end we have blue birds which are very different.  They don't seem to cross over.  It's amazing how such a little distance can cause such changes.  Rainfall is much higher in the east during the summer months as storms come up out of the deserts 4000 feet below.  But in the winter at the west end we get snow when often just 12 miles away the sun is shining.