Day One

Last night the beep of the bluetooth speaker woke me up at about 10:00PM, which happens when the power cycles on and off. I opened my eyes and none of the usual faint LEDs were on in our bedroom: no power. Fortunately I’d brought the little propane stove with me for the winter up here so Lisa and I were able to enjoy some hot coffee and tea while we prepped breakfast and lunch by flashlight in the dark. The storm that began on Christmas Eve just kept on coming after a bit of a lull on Christmas Day, hitting the Sierras with ferocity after we’d all gone to bed on post-Christmas dinner. The pics below are of a huge fir that toppled in the storm, colliding with an adjacent power pole and snapping it in two. Live wires were strewn across the street when we woke up this morning, and another large tree knocked out some high voltage transmission lines just down the road to kill power to all of Donner Summit. Yes, even Sugar Bowl.

As of 7:06AM this morning Sugar Bowl was still without power, putting opening day as well as Max’s first day at the Academy seriously in doubt. PG&E worked some magic shortly before 7:30AM, though, so thankfully we were able to deliver Max to his team just before 9:00AM and hop on the chairlift shortly thereafter.

The Christmas storm delivered an incredible 62 inches/1.6 meters of cold smoke to Donner Summit over the span of two days and the temps stayed well below freezing all day today, keeping the snow in pristine condition. Only the lower portion of the mountain was open, but man it was a great way to start the season (even if it was a month late!). The girls and I were lucky to score top-to-bottom boot deep fresh tracks for the first hour or so, and for the rest of the day successfully hunted for more in all the out-of-the-way spots we’ve committed to memory over the years. We spied Wild Man with his ripper squad of Truckee local kids a few times throughout the day, Lisa even managed to get him to ride the chair with us once in the late afternoon. After listening to his post-ski stories of teammates hucking helicopters and corks off the mountain’s natural features in the powder all day, I have a feeling Maxie is going to have his work cut out for him on the slopes this season!

I did want to put a couple of pics of the poor Subaru when I went to dig it out after skiing today, just for my own personal reference. I’ve dug a lot of vehicles out after big Sierra storms over the years, but never have I had one as buried as this!