It occurred to me that snow and leaves are similar in that they crunch when you walk on them. Why, I wondered. Why?
They both fall from the sky, albeit most often from different heights. Perhaps this is a clue, falling? Thinking on this a moment, I realized that maybe it’s not the fall that (kills you) causes said crunchiness, but what transpires during said descent. Maybe, unbeknownst to us, snowflakes scream as they plummet headlong toward the earth, and because their terminal velocity is so low (they fall slowly when compared to other objects), the scream, which lasts an eternity in the life cycle of a snowflake, causes their little voice boxes to go hoarse. And the crunch is representative of the hoarseness of the little creatures.
And while leaves do not fall anywhere near as long (distance or time), they are much larger, so their hoarseness is like a deafening roar when compared to a snowflake. The only reason you can hear snow at all, is there are just so many of them. So darned many of them!
Yes, yes, this must be the reason.