It’s been a maybe a decade since winter conspired to hermetically seal Jackson Hole from the rest of civilization, vehicle-wise. Widespread road closures (our valley has but three paved escape routes) bring a comforting sensation to the cocky among us, not unlike the sanctuary of a snow cave. Outside it’s bonkers, icy fingers of death and all that. Inside it’s strangely calm and cozy. Another double hit of Quaker Instant Oatmeal?

Of course, during the 48-hour snow’n'blow siege I needed to be elsewhere, 400 miles up the road in Missoula. The storm landed on Thursday. That morning we tried to make it out, found ourselves nearly surrounded with road closures, and were barely able to crawl back over Teton Pass. By the usual standards of perversion-in-retrospect, this was actually fun.

While Colleen kept momentum into the whiteout, we barely made the last three switchbacks, me sticking my head out the window and navigating by urging the car to stay about five feet from the snowbank, which is as far as I could see.

Back home, I remained determined to find a hole, any hole, to Missoula. I became obsessed with road report surfing. What I learned:

1. Idaho has a superb road report Web site. Wyoming’s is useful if scattered. As for Montana’s, do you guys actually pay for that? Pretty state, ugly maps.

2. Even if you have high bandwidth, use Idaho’s low-bandwidth version. Use the tabs (WEATHER, CAMERA, MOUNTAIN PASSES, et al.) to get the info you want smacked in your face instantly.

3. Refreshing Web pages does not seem to accelerate snow plows.

4. Webcams are under-appreciated as an art form.

If Andy Warhol were alive he’d probably snatch public domain webcam shots of the West for an ironic art book. Look at this honey:

That’s Teton Pass, finally plowed but still closed. The placement of the light pole in the frame might be a little bit too well thirds-rule composed but the droll LOW PRESSURE offsets that. Then there’s the subtext. That smudged spot to the left of the light pole is from where WyDOT’s mighty 105mm Howitzer shot Twin Slides. Meanwhile, for all the drab inactivity in this shot, on either side of this lightpole are thousands of people not making it to work, or not being delivered their freshly roasted coffees, or in the case of Bill Boney, Victor’s finest caterer, not seeing his kids for two days.

One other thing about the Teton Pass webcams. If timestamps can be trusted, the photos are being taken two minutes into the future. If one of Teton Pass’s webcams (there are four) witnesses a fight breaking out in the parking lot, it may be possible to arrive in time to to stop it before it starts!

On the other hand there’s this sharp and picturesque shot:

This is I-15, pegged “Camp Creek 2” on the Idaho site. At the moment this was taken, some 50 miles to the east both Teton Valley and Jackson Hole were snowdrift-locked. This shot reminds of a postcard 50 years old that could bear the legend, in Dom Casual font, “America’s New Interstate Roadways: Indomitable Friend of Commerce Means More Progress For You No Matter The Slush.” Where’s the irony? Well, of a couple dozen webcam shots I grabbed, only this one gave me trouble. It crashed Safari several times. Then it crashed Firefox and finally my entire computer.

The real gem, by a long shot, is this one taken along Idaho 33 somewhere between Newdale and Tetonia. ID 33 was my preferred route. I watched it for three days, windswept, forlorn, and really really closed to traffic:

Words fail. I love this shot. Dorthea Lange, you’ve been pwned.

David J. Swift is a writer and photographer in Jackson Hole.