by Judy Bracken, Newsletter Editor
What started out as a couple of days skiing before the holiday crowds hit ended up in an adventure that I’ve always wanted to experience–being “snowed in” in a cabin in the mountains. My partner Mark and I, with our two dogs, headed up to Truckee on December 19, not realizing that a monster storm was on the way. We had intended to drive back on Christmas Eve and celebrate the rest of the holidays in San Ramon. While Mark examined the weather forecasts, I skied Monday and Tuesday at Northstar and Palisades with my fellow NSC member Elaine. We soon realized that the storm was much bigger than expected and either we go back on the 22nd, or stay for the duration. The decision was made once I called my son and told him the situation, whereupon he decided to make a beeline for Truckee, where he could work from home, ski and hang with us for a few days.
On Wednesday 12/22, the first day of the storm, it began to rain. Oh no! I thought, they got it all wrong and it’s too warm to snow. Thankfully that night, the rain turned to snow, and it didn’t let up for the next five days. We shoveled the deck, we shoveled the berms on the driveway, we shoveled the steps to the front door, then rinse and repeat over and over. I was glad we were there to clear the decks or the snow might have buried the house completely! It was probably 10-12 feet overall. Although I have a driveway clearing service, they were often unable to get to all the houses and they even had one day where they ran out of fuel. The city snowplows were running out of places to move the snow and the roads, when they did get plowed, were becoming very narrow.
My son and I planned to ski on Christmas Eve, but when the power went out we realized we could not get the garage door opened (it’s a big door with a tall ceiling). However, I was surprised and happy when I saw that we had left the garage door open overnight! So we went on to Northstar, where we enjoyed a wonderful day of skiing in fresh powder on many runs. It was quite heavy snow that day, but as the days went by, the snow became lighter and fluffier. On Christmas Day the storm was in full force; we could not have skied even if we wanted to, as there was too much snow in the driveway and on the roads. I heard later that Northstar had closed at 2 that day due to low visibility.
Power outages were part of the snowed in experience. We had a 12-14 hour outage on Christmas Eve and one for 6-7 hours on Christmas Day, then there was one more long one on the 26th. Candlelight turned out to be soothing and relaxing, we had a good fireplace, and we were able to cook on our gas stovetop. My son tethered off his phone for internet usage. The tankless water heater didn’t work, so no baths or showers, but we were lucky to be mostly comfortable during those outages. If we got cold, we just went outside and shoveled snow!
We cross-country skied on the streets and snowshoed on the trails if we felt cabin fever for the few days that we were snowbound. The dogs were mystified by so much snow, but once they realized that snow and cold was everywhere outside, they made quick work of their “business.” On the day that I was finally able to take a hot bath, suddenly the house shook and shuddered. The dogs barked and I thought, “earthquake.” It turned out to be a huge 15 foot wide by 5 foot high cornice of snow that had fallen from the roof. It was a mini-version of a calving glacier!
We were waiting for I-80 to open on Tuesday, 12/28, and there was a break in the storm. Even though my Epic pass was blacked out, I just had to ski that day with all that fresh snow. So I carefully drove to Northstar, parked in the practically empty lots, bought a day pass and jumped on the gondola. Nearly every run was ungroomed, so I went to the steepest run I could find. Much to my dismay, I immediately got stuck, as the snow was too deep to move. The Backside and Lookout were closed and nothing was steep enough to get through the powder. Snowboarders fared much better than skiers, but even they were struggling. So I surrendered to the conditions and ended up enjoying some beautiful groomed runs on soft, fluffy, fresh snow. The air was clear, the crowds were minimal, and I was in heaven. Our adventure ended that day. We packed up and drove home the next morning, while many others were coming up. We can all be happy now that there is plentiful snow in the resorts, and we will have many more days of great skiing this season.
