A life of resilience. Remembering Baltimore’s snow mountain.

A duck floated in a small puddle near Old Town Mall, paddling its feet in the last remnants of a mountain of snow and ice that towered over Baltimore for months.

It was a freak of nature, a product of officials scrambling to respond to an unusual storm that stood defiantly against rising temperatures, city workers and general logic. It stunned even a glaciologist, who had to see it in person after I emailed her photos.

Now it’s gone.

People said on social media that they were yucked out by it — and yet none of us could look away. It was dubbed Snow Everest.

I visited the vacant lot once a week, assigned to track the mound as it melted. It surprised us all with its resilience, the final act of a winter storm that Baltimore hadn’t seen the likes of in a decade.

Snow Everest completely melted in early May at about 3 months old, when the weather fluctuated from lows in the 40s to highs in the 80s. It leaves behind dirt that plow trucks picked up from roads, as well as dozens of car tires, several flex posts and at least one electric scooter. It also leaves behind a lot that had already been abandoned, near a mall some once hoped the city would revitalize.

A historic storm dumped almost a foot of snow and ice in parts of Maryland in late January. The making of the storm was unusual for the region, too, as cold Arctic air reached as far south as Texas. It resulted in an intense storm with more compacted winter precipitation than typical for Maryland. Glaciologists have a name for it: névé.

Baltimoreans and city officials had to get creative in the aftermath of the storm, which The Weather Channel dubbed Winter Storm Fern. The city recruited volunteers to help neighbors who couldn’t remove ice from their sidewalks. Crews melted some of the snow in the M&T Bank Stadium. The cleanup cost the city $80 million, about 10 times what the city had budgeted.

Much of the remaining snow made its way to the city-owned lot near Old Town Mall. We collectively named it Snow Everest, proclaiming it the city’s newest landmark. “Suck it, Western Maryland! We’ve got mountains, too,” one person commented on Reddit. Someone tried to conquer it, placing a flag at its top, then about four stories high.

Other mounds across the city, usually near intersections and by bus stops, got old fast. People battled over parking spaces. Sidewalks became a minefield of ice. Cue that one “Frozen” song that was everywhere on TikTok.

City workers reached a breakthrough in early April when they began breaking apart the snow mountain to make it melt more quickly.

By late April, Everest was downgraded to a hill, with a respectable canyon in the middle of the lot. That was the beginning of the end.

I stalled a bit the morning of my last drive to Old Town Mall. Maybe part of me already knew. I stared at the lot, which had an unobstructed view of abandoned buildings with exposed bricks and graffiti. There were still many tires, trash and dirt.

Nearby shop owners and residents worried about potential environmental hazards from the melting snow, despite city officials saying they weren’t worried about runoff. The mall already faced neglect and had issues with trash being dumped before the winter storm, said Angela Showell, owner of The Thrifting Place.

Baltimore City Department of Transportation workers are planning on “hauling trash to the landfill and turning the dirt to create a smoother surface,” said Kathy Dominick, a spokesperson for the department.

I walked back to my car and drove around the lot one more time. Whatever is next for Old Town Mall, it starts with the end of Baltimore’s own Everest.