Winter Wonderland

We spent all week last week listening to the weather reports forecasting three back-to-back atmospheric rivers hitting Norther California over the Martin Luther King Day long weekend. Multiple feet of snow were expected in the Sierras, and travel up into the mountains during the storms was not advised. So, like true powder chasers, Lisa wrangled a day off work on Friday so we could head up there before the weather closed the freeway. We spent the morning on Friday on the lower mountain at Squaw, some very ordinary conditions of icy, windblown groomers and crunchy snow off piste. Around noon on Friday the sky turned dark and the flakes started dropping. And then it didn’t stop for four days…

The freeway closed early evening on Friday, sadly preventing the Munselles from joining us up in Tahoe for the weekend together we’d been planing since August! They were turned around east of Sacramento and spent the weekend back in Sonoma County. Lots of disappointment for both families… It snowed and snowed and snowed, keeping the freeway closed for most of the long weekend as the powder accumulated. The stormy conditions had all of Alpine and most of Squaw completely offline by 1PM on Saturday due to either high winds or lightning, but boy of boy were the conditions on Saturday morning incredible. Fresh tracks everywhere and an almost empty mountain with all the roads closed. Bliss.

Sunday was a phenomenal day of skiing, we were out of the house by 7:20AM and were on the fifth chair up Roundhouse for run after run of fresh tracks in boot- to knee-deep powder. Some very light snow by Tahoe standards, almost four feet of it since Saturday morning. Such incredible fun. Both the kids were in their groove in the powder by mid-morning, Max was especially stoked on the fluff and almost wore me out by skiing solid from lift open until after 3PM when high winds closed Summit Chair for the day. It’s not going to be long before Dad is retiring for the day before the boy.

The snow kept coming and made Monday one for the ages, it’s some of the deepest snow I’ve skied in California. Lisa and I ditched the littles for a few runs when we made it over to Sherwood on one of the first chairs for the day (we were chair number two on Subway), asking them to please stick together and stay away from trees whilst skiing without us. We were rewarded with top-to-bottom fresh tracks for three or four runs, the snow on East Face was so deep it was billowing up into my jacket with each turn. Incredible. After skiing until lift close the day prior, Wild Man’s legs didn’t have it in him for another full day, but we all maxed out as much fresh powder as we could before navigating the long weekend traffic over the pass to get back home. My body still feels sore sitting her typing a day after the fact.