A Blizzard Came To Tahoe
The more I talk to people about going to Tahoe in the winter, the more I am amazed that we still go. It is always a mess — the 3.5 hour drive can turn to a 5-7hr drive if you’re lucky, and sometimes 10-26hr drive if you’re really lucky. When we hear snow on the radar, a small voice inside of us grows in excitement and dread. “In Tahoe it is snowing. The mountains are calling. We must drive it.” One day on the mountain makes you forget the road closures, the car spin outs, the tire chains, and getting stuck behind snow plows. There is always just one road into Tahoe, and one road out. And that depends on who you are.
Snow was not just on the horizon — a blizzard was sweeping through Tahoe. Jamie and I have limited weekends we can head up to Tahoe, and so that small voice grew louder. The roads were open, the traffic minimal, so we packed our car and chanced a weekend to Tahoe. To our absolute surprise, we got there in record time — 4 hours. But Tahoe did not want us to get the wrong idea, that it was going to remain simple for us. The key to our friend’s cabin would not unlock the door, which lead to us trying to unlock it for an hour at 2am. Out of frustration or exhaustion I cracked the key, tried to rebend it, then successfully snapped it in half. We returned to our car, two key shards in hand, and tried to find a hotel. At 3am the only one available was for $700. For fear of dying in the cold, I almost booked it. Jamie, however, had another solution.
She outlined the plan plainly. We will sleep in the car for 3 hrs until Mountain Hardware opens at 6am. We will make copies of the key, and try again. When I pointed out that people would find us dead in the car from the dropping temperatures, she pulled out a camping blanket my Aunt Terri had given her. And she was right - we slept a toasty 3 hrs and Lemon had no idea we slept in a car in 15 degree weather. We woke up and 5 minutes later were driving down the road to get keys made. We made a small detour into a snow bank to avoid another car that was spinning out of control. Since we missed the pile up accident that that resulted in, we were soon on our way to Mountian Hardware.
Mountain Hardware didn’t even charge us for the keys. They too were invested in our welfare, and even called us later in the day to see if the keys worked. Once back at the cabin, the door would not open still. We called a locksmith, who managed to open the door with our newly made keys, but also having to create a wedge under the door — and it was a Hallelujah moment! We entered the cabin only 12 hours after we arrived into Tahoe.
That day was so nice. We made a fire, took a nap, hiked with snow shoes, and cooked steaks. The next day we got to Homewood Ski Resort. Not many people braved coming to Tahoe that weekend, and so we had the mountain to ourselves, and shared its slopes with only the Blizzard. Jamie and I are happily improving — it only took 5 years. We had the space to try new things, and the comfort of the powder to go even faster. When you fall with thick powder, it is not nearly as scary or as painful. I even left my butt-pads at home.
It took only 6 hours on the mountain to offset the extreme craziness it took us to make it there. After we returned from the lift, we decided to head back to San Francisco that same night, as the blizzard was picking up, and we feared what the roads would become. It took us 2 hours to get to the highway, thanks to googlemaps being dumb. They were already closing highways at that point, but luckily we got a window where they opened. We made it home after a total of 7 hours driving, which was not as bad as it could be or has been. We are so insanely grateful we left when we did — all roads in and out of Tahoe closed the next morning for 4 days.
Writing all of this down, you may wonder why we go. You will never understand, because you weren’t on that mountain with us.
