Pacific Crest Snowcat Skiing and Boarding at Lake Tahoe – When The Snow CameView Comments

When the snow came, it came as a great downpour. Falling in tight groups like silver dollar pancakes being flipped onto the Sierra Madres, it landed with weighted impact. In the Rockies, where I am used to riding, the flakes drift and nestle. They rest on top of one another trapping air to build a fluffy top layer. Here at Tahoe’s north shore, on top of Pacific Crest’s 2000 acres of privately leased land, the snow was dense, thick and not about to stop. Our guide Ward was pointing out our boundaries, but I could not look him in the face. Instead, my head was fixed upwards into the barrage of heavy clumps that fell ceaselessly. In seconds my goggles filled with landed clusters, my shoulders caught a solid layer of white crystal icing and the creases of my jacket gathered ravines of fresh powder. I cracked a wide smile and snow fell on my teeth. In these conditions, this day would be epic, and if the snow kept coming, like the forecast predicted, we would be thankfully stranded in a storm of “sierra cement.”

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