I’ve been up in Tahoe for the past week and let me tell you, this has been one bender of a storm cycle. We’ve seen it all, from sneaky powder afternoons to whiteout conditions, massive blizzards that resulted in bluebird powder mornings, and, seeing as it’s now March, a couple ill-timed days of spring slush as well. I’ve also scored, big time, and it looks like the snow isn’t letting up anytime soon. I’m going to have a lot of trouble leaving when the time comes.
The storms over the past week delivered the goods. Palisades Tahoe reported a 146-inch storm total over the past week, blasting past the 500-inch mark for the season. Their website currently reports 539 inches (the exact same as Sugar Bowl), just a bit ahead of what’s usually the snowiest mountain in California, Mammoth Mountain’s 525-inch season total. Kirkwood is reporting 526.
Yes, Mountain High is buried. Photo: Mountain High
And Tahoe wasn’t the only part of California that profited. Southern California mountains like Mountain High, Big Bear and Mount Baldy received about eight feet of snow during the storms as well.
Due to the frigid temperatures the storm brought with it, that snow was remarkably light and fluffy at higher elevations, and made its way well beyond the usual elevations we see snow at in California. In the Bay Area, Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais, and the Santa Cruz mountains all received snow. Mount Diablo had enough to ski on. Some beaches in Santa Cruz saw a thin layer of “graupel” a type of melted and refrozen snow similar to hail. Mountains in the Los Padres National Forest above Santa Barbara had enough snow to break out the snowboards, and even the Hollywood sign saw a light dusting. This has been, and continues to be, a winter to remember.
Photo: Andy Berkenfield.
I made it up from San Francisco on the evening of Wednesday, February 22 as the first snowfall since the beginning of the month began coming down. It snowed almost nonstop Thursday and Friday before letting up Saturday, with one of those aforementioned warmups. The snow returned Sunday afternoon, and it didn’t let up until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, so much snow was falling that all the resorts in the area closed for avalanche conditions – and simply couldn’t keep up with the amount of snow coming down. As you can see below, however, local legends like Cody Townsend were able to sniff out places safe enough to play in on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the rest of us shoveled and attempted to catch up on emails.
View this post on Instagram
Wednesday morning dawned a perfectly crisp bluebird day, but the lifts at Palisades Tahoe didn’t open until 11:00 a.m. as resort crews worked to clear chairs, and the sound of avalanche bombs echoed off the walls of the valley. When they did open, those patiently waiting were treated to some of the best runs of their lives in the perfect, bottomless, blower powder. To cap things off, there’s more on the way, potentially as much as four feet more. Yeah, I probably won’t be going home any time soon.
