Tahoe got just a little bit more snow in the first week of May, but Darlene and I couldn’t make it up until this past week – just as the temperatures climbed back into the high 50’s and low 60’s. We got in three short days at Alpine and Palisades – bailing mid-day each day as the snow started getting grabby. I got to try my new X-Wing pilot costume and Darlene borrowed my Marvin the Martian outfit:
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Darlene and I headed back up to Tahoe at the end of February to meet up with Jon, Stan and Bill for our annual weeklong group ski trip. Storm after storm is continuing to dump massive amounts of snow in the Sierra Nevada – 53 feet over the season at Palisades so far. We were able to come up in a slight break in the back-to-back storms hitting Tahoe (and all of California), but we had to take the long way out because highway 17 (through the low elevation, coastal Santa Cruz mountains) was actually closed due to snow – a very rare occurrence.
There were travel troubles all around with Jon’s flight cancelled and Stan coming up early to try to beat the storm. We were joined by Resi and Aiden on Saturday before they had to rush back ahead of the next incoming storm. We spend the day trying to clear some of the snow and ice from the deck, roof and stairs. So much ice keeps building up on the deck and the stairs below from the ice-melting heat trace on the roof above – it actually was overflowing the threshold of the sliding doors below, freezing them in place and leaking water into the house.
Geof and Jennifer were also able to come up and stay for the week through the storms. Unfortunately, Geof got seriously ill and ended up quarantined in a room for much of the week. But then even the resorts had difficulties: closing early Monday, remaining closed Tuesday and only partially open the following day due to the massive amounts of new snow in such a short period. We did still manage to get multiple days of skiing in over our stay.
4.5 minute video montage of our week of Tahoe skiing
I joined Troy at Homewood on Sunday and then Jon, Stan and Bill at Northstar on Monday (until they closed early). The resorts remained closed Tuesday and were still trying to dig out on Wednesday when I joined Troy again for the one lift that Homewood was able to get running. Darlene joined me, Jon, Stan and Bill at Alpine and Palisades for much of Thursday and Friday, while Geof and Jennifer hit up the same resorts separately and Kat joined us for board gaming Friday night. Darlene and I returned to Palisades and Northstar the following Monday and Tuesday before we had to make our way home again ahead of the next wave of storms – this time bringing warm temps and rain.
A drone flyover of the house to survey the current snow load as of early March.
There’s something like over 10 feet of ice and compacted snow on the roof right now. Hopefully it will sustain the load and the incoming heavy snow and rain until our roof is scheduled to get at least partially cleared of snow late next week!
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Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada are known for huge amounts of snow but it’s still fun to enjoy great gobs of it as records are broken. The Tahoe area has been running over 200% of average since December and it has kept on coming. We’ve already exceeded the total season average here of 400 inches (as has Mammoth Mountain, further south in the Sierra) and it’s only early February!
I posted some pics and video in early January, then we were off to Vail for a previously-planned week-long ski trip. So this gallery is catching up on pictures and video from mid-January as well as a rush back up to join Troy and Aiden for another nice storm in early February. We hit up Northstar, Alpine Meadows and of course lots of Homewood on powder days:
3.5-minute video montage from mid-January to early February
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Darlene relented to dipping into cold water again and joined me for a dive at Breakwater Cove in Monterey to refresh our scuba skills ahead of our upcoming trip. 54 degrees at the bottom of the dive – warm for Monterey!
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Darlene and I spent a couple weeks in late June and early July at the Tahoe house taking care of a bunch of house maintenance, including roof repair, clearing newly fallen branches and pine needles, moving the bear box to accommodate a widening of the driveway, etc. We took some time off from all that to go climb to the top of a very windy Mt. Rose (elev. 10,785 ft.), do some mountain biking and hike up the Five Lakes trail near Palisades/Alpine Meadows.
We also had another bear visitor while up working on the roof:
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Darlene and I loaded up the van and the cats and headed out this past week for a short adventure. First stop was to overnight under some dark skies in the San Benito mountains for a potential meteor storm from Tau Herculids. (There was a decent meteor shower, but no full-on storm.) We then spent the next five days in and around Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon National Park, hiking among the magnificent giant sequoia trees, checking out Kings Canyon and exploring the Sequoia National Forest between the two national parks. We also attempted an extended mountain bike ride from Buck Rock to Lookout Peak but had to abort due to a failure / total destruction of my rear hub – resulting in a long bike walk back.
We came across some black bears while hiking in Sequoia National Park.
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These are pictures and videos from several more ski weekends at Homewood in Tahoe with Troy, Resi, Aiden and Darlene over February and March.
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Darlene and I joined Bill, Stan and Jon for our yearly ski vacation week, this time in Tahoe in early March. We hit up Northstar and Palisades Tahoe during the week, with lots of board gaming in between of course. On Saturday, Stan and Jon joined us at Homewood with Troy and Aiden to enjoy a bit of new snow.
(3.3 minute video montage of our ski week)
And a little VR demo-ing:
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I took off in an F/A-18E jet from Truckee airport and visited most of the Tahoe area ski resorts in 12 minutes or less:
A four-minute video montage of our skiing days.
We got our gaming group together in Tahoe in early February for a few days of skiing and board gaming. Geof and Nacho joined me on the slopes at Tahoe Palisades while Jennifer, Adriana, Laurie and Richard checked out the lake and old town Truckee – and Laurie got in an afternoon at Northstar.
We had exploding potions in Quacks of Quedlinburg, color confusion in Hues and Cues, pushed our luck in Diamant, placed our bets in Wits & Wagers, rolled for the top in Mountain Goats, intercepted secret codes in Decrypto, managed our tricks in both The Crew and Instinct, swam with sharks in Survive: Escape from Atlantis!, built up a map of cities and roads in Carcassonne, dodged avalanches in Slide 5, and laid out our “stained glass” dice windows in Sagrada.
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While Darlene was out here visiting for a few days from Wisconsin, ;-) we took the kayak out for a late morning paddle in Elkhorn Slough. And of course we saw the usual array of sea lions, sea otters, pelicans, etc:
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We got piles of snow at the end of December, setting new records for the month (17 feet). The storm kept all the highways closed for many days, but Troy, Resi, Aiden and I were eventually able to get up to Tahoe – and ski together for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
A little four-minute video montage of our ski adventures.
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We loaded up the van and headed out last week, stopping first for a couple of days to visit with Troy in Tahoe.
Our intention was to travel on to the Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada and maybe into Utah but we had to cut the trip short and head home early so that Darlene could help a friend. So we spent the couple of days we had checking out Pyramid Lake north of Reno (which is where Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River drain to) and then visiting the Black Rock Desert playa before heading home.
All of this area (and in fact all of northwest Nevada) used to be submerged in a huge prehistoric lake (Lake Lahontan) and the ancient water lines are still obvious along the mountain sides. There are also lots of cool tufa rock formations in the area, though unfortunately much of the area around Pyramid Lake is off limits to the public and open to tribal members only. (The lake and surroundings are part of a Paiute Reservation.)
Tufa / calcium carbonate rock formations (or perhaps alien artifacts)
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Humboldt Redwoods State Park (California)
With Darlene out in Wisconsin visiting her family, I loaded up the van with Pan and Hera and headed up to the Pacific Northwest for a couple of weeks, visiting with my brother and some friends in the Portland/Vancouver area as well as exploring a bit of countryside – while avoiding the smoke from the wildfires already flaring up.
 Visiting with Corey and his family |
 And with Jon & Siobhan |
Glenn and Michele then joined me in their new van for a little tour around Olympic National Park.
Hiking in Olympic National Park (Washington)
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We drove out to the sea cliffs near Pescadero Beach this morning to see if we could spot some whales. We lost the sun on the way over but we did get to see what I think were gray whales as they swam near us for a while:
After a couple of days layover in Tahoe to ski some new snow and repair the van (a badly installed anti-sway bar), we headed off again – north this time towards Lassen National Park. Along the way, we spent an afternoon riding as far as we could (before being turned back by snow) up the Mills Peak Lookout trail near Greagle, checked out the Subway Cave near Old Station, wandered around some rough forest roads, visited Burney Falls – and in Burney I was finally able to snag a covid vaccination shot!
The highway through Lassen was still closed to vehicles as they continued to clear the snow but open to biking which made a lovely ride to the top from the southwest entrance. We made two attempts at hiking the Chaos Crags trail on the other side of the park (after getting caught in a thunder and hail storm) and pushed past the still snow covered road to check out the Fantastic Lava Beds area.
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