Ed Quillen

My father, who turns 81 in about a week, has lived in the West all his life, and he swears we have no such season as spring, at least not in the sense of a gradual warming and greening as the climate makes a gentle transition from winter to summer. “One day you get a foot of snow,” he remarks, “and a week later, the trees are leafed out. There’s no season. It just happens all at once.”

That certainly seems to be true this year. The branches were bare just a week or so ago, and now the lilacs appear ready to bloom. Granted, I live at 7,000 feet above sea level, where the seasons can be expected to vary from the norm, but still, the whole concept of “spring,” as the textbook interval between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice, seems to fit us not at all. We pretty much jump from winter to summer without much in between.

But saying that we have but three seasons — winter, fall, and summer — seems much too simple. And the old joke that we have only two seasons — winter and visiting relatives — is even more an oversimplification, despite its ring of truth.

However, if you pay close attention to what you hear, be it at the greasy-spoon diner or the upscale latte emporium, you’d come up with quite a few seasons.

There is Winter, also known as Ski Season. It is followed by Mud Season, which overlaps with Tick Season, and that’s a transition to Summer, also known as Tourist Season. After Labor Day, it morphs into Aspen-Viewing Season. Meanwhile, there’s also Firewood-Gathering Season, which halts for Big-Game Season, when it feels risky to go outdoors for any other purpose. That gets us to Ski Season and the start of a new year.

Or at least that’s the way it works here, and in every mountain town I’ve lived in. Your seasons may be somewhat different where you live in the West — but I bet none of them should be named “Spring.”