What Is The Definition Of A Brutal Winter?

Let's see... By the end of February, Squaw Valley had set a record for total snow by that date of 393 inches. That's 32 feet, and we still have March and April left to go.

Let's see... Snow sliding off our roof ripped off our wood stove chimney pipe. It was reinforced and tied to the roof with HEAVY angle bracing that I thought could probably support a car (if one were to set a car on the braces). The chimney pipe was also protected by a HEAVY metal ice cutter. Yet, we came home after a major storm and it all was gone.  Not just hanging there broken. Gone. As in not visible. As in buried somewhere down in the berm below the roof, a berm which, on the north side of the house, is above the second floor. True, we do live in a particularly snowy part of Tahoe. But still...
(You may think we had escaped to the tropics during that storm, enjoying tropic stuff - warm breezes, flowers. Unfortunately, we'd been staying at our studio because we couldn't get to our house for days. Yes, we live on a regular public road with regular public snow removal. But it took three days after the storm had passed for the rotary to come up our road. Until that time, the only way to travel over 6 feet of snow is by snowshoe. In years past, storms like that left us snowed-in, trapped in our house. This one left us snowed-OUT, trapped at work.

Let's see... Another definition of a brutal winter is when we finally get three days in a row of sweet, warm sunshine, we go manic, skiing, dancing on the deck, writing sonnets, drinking wine.

We're not pretending winter is over. After 29 years in Tahoe, we know the snow keeps falling until June 15th and sometime even later. But we're still manic.