My wife formerly lived in Anza, CA, with a long, twisty road "off the hill" to reach civilization. She ran a private school, and made a point of getting a Technician license so she'd be able to communicate with parents and public authorities in an emergency. You may well have more days of ice and snow than she had, but I recall one trip there when we couldn't even get the car out of the carport because the drive was so icy. The roads "off the hill" would have been impassable.
Don't give up. You may have to make a trip "off the hill" to take the test, but once you've passed that, you're good indefinitely. Just renew when the license comes due.
Thank you. We’ve learned much over the years and will be okay.
I’m not sure that we’ll go with ham. We may be most interested in finding any other truly private sector, technically inclined people within a radius of 20 miles or so for some new communications hobbies.
After also having lived in places like Texas and the Ozarks in the past, I know that there are some good ham operators in some places and other kinds of people in other places. Gotta go and do some more work on snow fence now. The wind just started coming over the peaks.