I saw a lot of snow when I lived in Vermont. There were some occasional serious storms where we had to shovel snow off the roof for fear of its collapsing, but more or less, winters felt like living in a quiet snow-globe postcard with the fun challenge of driving around in it.
The week we were in Tahoe, it seems they were measuring snow in feet, not inches (and I think in yards up on the ski slopes). John and I arrived in Reno in the early evening and drove through a blizzard to get to Incline Village, where we were staying. The guy at the rental car place told us about an amazingly helpful Nevada website that reports road conditions & closures on a color-coded map. Some roads even had live webcams you could click on. The mountain pass to Incline was closed, so we drove around through Carson City and even that felt pretty harrowing, especially once it got dark, but we made it. In the morning we woke up to snowy lumps where cars were supposed to be. Hello, winter!
We were pretty much snowed in that first day as lot of the passes were still closed. We did manage to shovel out cars and the driveway and venture out to rent skis (downhill for John and his friends, cross-country for pokey old me!) This was the road back to the house after it was plowed:
Most roads looked pretty much like that the entire time we were there!
One of John’s relatives lives in Incline Village & I was so happy that we were able to meet up with her. She said one of her favorite things to do in the winter is watching the sunset at the beach. Off we went! I froze my butt off but it really was beautiful. I felt like an arctic explorer (thankfully with a hot shower waiting at the end of the day!)
The weather was so strange during our week in Tahoe. That first day was a bust for skiing, another day it rained & was too windy for the lifts to run, and on another there were storms that logged over a thousand lightning strikes which shut down the slopes. In between all that, I did manage to cross-country ski a handful of times, once in a lovely snowstorm. The lady at the trailhead ski lodge called me a brave soul (I was the only person out there besides a couple who were snowshoeing) and made me promise to check in with her when I got back.
On our last day I’d wanted to drive up to the Tahoe-Donner Cross-country Ski Center (it’s supposed to be one of the best in the country) but once again the pass was closed and it was snowing like crazy. I thought, well, okay, maybe I can at least get to something closer, but after seeing a couple car accidents, and encountering unplowed roads I didn’t want to take a chance on in a rental, I finally gave up. Instead I stuck close to the lake and stopped here and there to photograph it. These turned out to be some of my favorite photographs from the trip. I love that the blue-grey of the lake was just about the only “color.”
Driving back to the airport after the week was over, we decided to brave the pass. Ha ha ha! This is what it looked like for a good half of it:
Winter! I LOVED this trip. I loved that I got fresh air and exercise doing something that didn’t feel like exercise. I loved the giant icicles and the snow piles taller than I am. I loved the tall trees and skiing out in the middle of nowhere. And I love that spring is coming soon…
