Paddle Boarding, A Winter Sport?

As I write this, the snow has mostly melted at lake level. But we still have over 4000 vertical feet of white stuff above us on the mountains that ring the lake. Actually, 4600 feet, when you look up at the summit of Freel Peak on the South Shore, or Mt. Rose on the North Shore (the mountain on the far right of the picture below).

But what better time to go paddle boarding? The view is gorgeous. The weather is often gorgeous. And there is very little boat traffic to get in your way.

The Great Lakes Of U.S.

I remember as a kid learning that Lake Superior was, by surface area, the largest fresh water lake in the world. I don't recall talk about volume. When volume enters the picture Superior is only #3 behind Baikal (in Russia) and Tanganyika (in Tanzania).

Along with Superior are the other U.S. Great Lakes, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, five lakes that are too big to see across.

That makes five big lakes that are very deep. Superior, for example, has a maximum depth of 1,333 feet. And an average depth of 483 feet. That's a lot of water.

But what comes after the U.S. Great Lakes? What lake is #6 in water volume?

You guessed it. The 6th largest fresh water lake by volume in the U.S. is Tahoe. How could a relatively small lake be on the list of most-voluminous lakes? Because it is very deep, with a maximum depth of 1635 feet and an average depth of 1000 feet! That's a hole deep enough to hold a lot of water. (Yes, Tahoe's volume is substantially less than most of the Great Lakes. But #6 is still significant.)

On the list of voluminous lakes, Tahoe stands out as #1 in one way - possibly of all the substantial lakes in the world - and that's its purity of water, meeting many standards for distilled water.

A special lake indeed.

Will Tahoe Skiing Go Through April? Try JUNE.

When will resorts close this epic 2018-2019 ski season?

Nearly all of the Tahoe resorts plan to be open through next Sunday, April 21st. Some, like Mt. Rose and Donner Ski Ranch, will be open through April 28th.

But Heavenly has announced that they will be open every day through the 28th and, after that, they will be open weekends through Memorial Day.

And get this all you Colorado aficionados, Squaw plans to be open until JULY 7! Of course, they can't guarantee the weather will cooperate. But that shows how much snow they have.

Enjoy!

What To Do In April?

While April is a winter month in Tahoe, it is a glorious time for spring skiing. We have massive amounts of snow, but the weather is relatively warm. So grab your boards and come up the mountain.

This photo is the view looking south from the North Shore. On the left are the ski runs of Heavenly, Tahoe's highest resort at 10,067 feet. On the right are the scree fields of the Freel Peak Massif, which, at 10,886 feet is the highest mountain on the lake. (If you go a little south of the Tahoe Basin - toward Yosemite - you come to many higher peaks.) Freel's scree fields are long tracks of crumbling rock in the summer. They look like ski runs in the winter. And they are sometimes skied by serious back-country skiers. But beware, they are also avalanche paths!

Spring? Not In Tahoe...

I had to make a trip to Folsom. What I noticed was glorious green grass.


I came back up the mountain to winter. The snow has sunk a bit so that it is only 5 feet deep on the deck that we're not shoveling. As I write this, it's 14 degrees in our part of the South Shore down below Echo Summit. Ain't no spring here.

If you've got spring in your part of the world, enjoy it!

Massive Snow To Palm Trees In 80 Minutes

Up on Echo and Donner summits, the current snow depth is around 15 feet (30 feet of snowfall compressed down over time). If you drive down the West Slope, you get to the Central Valley floor and its palm trees in about 80 minutes. That isn't unique in the world, but it is very rare.

Big Snow to Palm Trees in 80 Minutes

There are many places where you can drop lots of elevation in a relatively short drive. For example, you can go from over 10,000 feet on Maui to sea level in less distance. But there isn't huge snow up on the Haleakala summit.

There are likely places in the Andes and the Alps and the Himalayas where one can go from snow to palm trees in a relatively short distance. But most of those places don't get that much snow.

So the next time you make the drive, take a moment to marvel at the contrast between Tahoe snow and the warm palm-tree climate just down the mountain!

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.

Imagine Three Kinds Of Personal Transportation

Tahoe has a large assortment of water birds. I was looking at this guy the other day, and I thought, not only can he fly, he can walk, and his body is a boat. How privileged would we feel if we could do that?

This Water Is Clearer Than Tap Water

We walked out to Pope Beach in the snow. Saw my shadow in the water.

Wow. Not the shadow. The clear, clear liquid. Amazing.

Sweet Sunshine, Spectacular Snow

On the passes coming into Tahoe are 15-foot snow walls.

The mountains are plastered with white.

It doesn't get better for wintertime play.

Grab your boards and c'mon up the mountain!

Heavenly as seen from Meyers

Snow Beats iPhone For Kids And Families

Most people think of Tahoe winter as a place of world-famous ski resorts.

But when you drive up Highway 50, you see hundreds of people stopped along the way. They park on the shoulder and take their kids up the forested slopes. They find a place to have more fun than many or most skiers at the resorts. Look close, and you'll see that not one kid is on their phone!

What a great way to show kids that there is more to life than social media!

Library = Church

For writers, walking into a library is like walking into church. The stuff inside the building is sacred, and the stuff one carries out is all about wisdom and guidance and thought provocation and a connection to something more important than our prosaic lives.

I've given talks at several dozen libraries in Northern California and Northern Nevada. I gave two more this last week, Colusa, CA and Lincoln, CA. Those libraries reinforced once again the simple fact that a library is the cultural center of its community. And the people who frequent libraries are remarkable, highly educated, and intensely interested in the larger world of ideas. Just to have a dozen or a hundred people turn off the TV and go to their local library for an event speaks volumes about their priorities. (And, of course, when people come to hear an author speak it is hugely gratifying to that author!)

If you haven't visited your local library in awhile, plan to go soon. You may be surprised. Even in a world where you can get lots of information from Google, your library offers uncountable resources.

My hat is off to libraries. A writer's church.