My brother didn’t fully secure the bear-proof trash bin cabinet while staying at the Tahoe house recently and a mama bear and her cubs managed to get into it. That wasn’t caught on video since their truck was blocking the camera, but you can see mama try the door to the truck before moving on. She was back again a couple of days later to see if anything more was to be found. Secure your trash!
The 2024-25 ski season in Tahoe wasn’t great. Plenty of moisture but that often included rain which would muck up the snow and freeze hard overnight and then it was often really warm, in the 40’s and 50’s through the whole season. We did hit up Northstar and Sugar Bowl over three days with Geof and Jennifer in early January, and a few days at Palisades and Alpine before and after our ski trip / road trip to Colorado and Utah in March.
We also encountered a bobcat along the road in our neighborhood who was so focused on what was happening down the street that he didn’t care that we stopped alongside of him to gawk and take pictures.
Click through for the full gallery here:
A bear wandered into the open garage while I was outside working on some wiring on the front porch. I would not have known he was there except that a woman stopped her car in front of the house a minute or so later to take pictures.
He found a little paper bag of trash that I was collecting while I was working – it had a food wrapper in it along with some wiring scrap. I had to shoo him off twice before he finally gave up and left for good.
We replaced the old ice melt / heat trace cable on the back of the house this week – and extended it out over the three story drop:
Heading out in the newly restored camper van, Darlene and I had a bit of an unexpected layover in Tahoe as several house maintenance and repair chores ended up taking a lot more time and Hera developed a new health issue. We did take a few days off for some mountain biking including some of the trails from the house near Brockway Summit and taking the Emigrant Trail out to Stampede Reservoir from Prosser Creek.
We also joined Mike and Nanci on the Flume Trail (a well known trail that overlooks Lake Tahoe along the east shore). We started at Spooner Lake, climbed up to Marlette Lake where Mike went for a brief swim and we took a snack break:
We then joined the Flume Trail where Mike promptly tumbled off trail somehow and tangled himself in his bike frame. Happily no one chose to tumble off the steep slopes of the Flume Trail proper but then Nanci had a nasty fall on the ride down the Tunnel Creek Road. With help from several others, we ended up waiting for emergency services to drive a buggy up to treat her with pain meds and move her down to a waiting ambulance. At the Truckee hospital, she was found to have broken a clavicle and a rib. Ouch, not the most fun way to end the day!
Click through for the full gallery:
This is a time-lapse recording at the Tahoe house over the 2022-23 winter season – from November 1st to June 1st. The house is at 6800 ft.
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:
Click through for the full gallery:
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.
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.
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!
Click through for the full gallery:
