It’s been a pretty dry January and February for snow in Tahoe, but we got the gang together at the Tahoe house for an early February weekend all the same. Darlene and I joined Greg, Erin & Merritt for a sunny Saturday at Squaw Valley and then Resi, Troy & Aiden at Homewood for a very windy Sunday. But it would seem the wind didn’t slow down Aiden at all…
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Christmas in Tahoe… fresh snow, skiing, snowshoeing, hanging a ceiling fan, playing new board games (Covert and Pandemic Legacy: Season 2).
But then… uh oh, my cat broke:
We got a couple more storms in mid-May along with a nice cold snap to bring fresh powder to the slopes… yay! I was able to head up with the cats and hit Squaw the morning after each storm and even just happened to catch Granite Chief moments after it opened on Sunday:
Darlene and Marvin the Martian joined Resi, Troy and Aiden for the closing ski weekend at Homewood in Tahoe this past Easter weekend:
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Darlene’s niece, Joslyn, came out from Wisconsin for her spring break from school and I think we managed to fill her time here. We visited Shark Fin Cove, Pigeon Point Lighthouse, the Seymour Marine Discovery Center and saw dolphins while flying the drone from the sea cliffs near Pescadero. We spent one morning to see the redwood trees at Henry Cowell State Park and a deserted Roaring Camp Railroads. We introduced her to the sea otters at Moss Landing and got in a guided walk at Año Nuevo to see the elephant seals (lots of weaned pups at this time of year) and she and Darlene stayed overnight at the Monterey Zoo and fed the elephants. Besides a couple of movie nights and several interesting board games, we also went up to Tahoe for three days so she could learn to ski – and she was careening down the mountain in no time!
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I was able to join Jon at Northstar and Bill and Kat at Heavenly for three days of skiing mid-week last week – and we had lots of sun and snow to play in.
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Our annual week of skiing and board gaming didn’t happen last year but we did manage to get together this year in Utah. Bill, Kat, Jon, Stan, Tom and I all hit up Alta, Snowbird and Solitude over five days. We had plenty of snow and a few extra inches here and there over the course of the week. We also got in plenty of gaming: Diamant, Sushi Go Party, Bang!, Slide 5, Decrypto, Cheaty Mages, Codenames: Pictures, Ricochet Robot, Cutthroat Caverns and a partial game of Fury of Dracula.
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Three weeks into February and Lake Tahoe ski resorts have already received record snowfall for the month: Squaw Valley got over 21 feet this month so far and nearly 43 feet for the season, and Homewood even more at 23 feet for the month.
Crazy! As in awesome fun! Well, except when the roads are closed due to nasty, accident-prone weather conditions – we spent one Saturday night trying to get back to the house in Tahoe Vista from Homewood. First the lake road was closed due to numerous accidents and when we finally tried to take the long way around via Truckee (and through some crazy whiteout conditions across the meadow below Northstar), they ended up closing Brockway Summit. After taking a break in Truckee for dinner and going back around through Tahoe City, we finally made it back to the house by 10 pm – maybe only barely before the unplowed snow on Regency Way got too deep for us to pass.
Three bountiful feet of snow overnight and many resorts had trouble opening for Sunday morning. (Squaw and Alpine didn’t and Homewood was overwhelmed with people and only one chair lift they could run.) That pattern of three feet of new snow repeated again and again over the month.
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