Powder Days in November?!

The rain last week in Sonoma County was incredible: flooded rivers, emergency school closures, canceled sports games… But it was a cold bomb cyclone that hit us in Northern California, which made for multiple feet of snow in the Sierras. Happy days. Kids were off school for the week of Thanksgiving and Mum was partying with Cheryl in Arizona, so no better place to be for the three of us than Powder Haus. The drive up with a little hairy but well worth it: I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been skiing before Thanksgiving, let alone tearing up cold smoke under blue skies! The conditions on Sunday morning were pretty incredible for early season turns, dry snow and cakes of fresh powder all over the trees. Such an amazing start to the season…

Whenever we’re up at Powder Haus – even though Lilia is certainly in teen mode these days – it makes me (and Lisa, when she’s here…) smile when the kids arrive, unpack the car like lightning and immediately head outside to fish, bike, build sled tracks and play in the snow for hours on end. The fresh snow meant lots of opportunities for tobogganing in the woods behind the cabin, I even heard the sleds careening down the road a few times before it was plowed (accompanied by squeals of joy)!

The snowfall continued after our first bluebird day on the slopes, with a few inches of fresh each day on top multiple feet from the prior week. On the last day (and probably best day) of the storm I had to threaten to leave the kids on the mountain to get them back to the car, they were so in their element hammering through the trees on an almost empty mountain, I think they would have skied until sundown. Really couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season (fun fact: it was Sugar Bowl’s earliest opening in more than 20 years!). Fingers crossed the snow gods keep it coming!