Journeys›Photograph

Alpine County Drive After a November Snowfall

·Alpine County, California·#winter#tahoe#snow#sierra nevada#driving
A snowy landscape with a highway, scattered trees, and distant mountains under a clear blue sky, viewed from a car.

The heater ran on high straight out of the driveway. At two degrees above zero, the navigation screen routed us south on Highway 89 for a clear day drive after a November snowfall. The plows had already cleared the center lines, pushing high banks against the asphalt while the pines still held the full weight of the storm.

We followed the California–Nevada state line wrapping around Lake Tahoe. The basin here was scraped out by faulting and glaciation over millions of years, leaving behind the largest alpine lake in North America by volume. Sitting at 6,225 feet above sea level, the surface water looked dark against the white shoreline. It holds an unusual clarity they historically measured by dropping a Secchi disk down into the column until it vanished.

Further into Alpine County, the heavy timber broke up into open valleys where bare sagebrush poked through the drift. Sun hit the driver's side glass hard enough to keep the visors down.

Inside a Tesla, the dashboard and screen are visible, with a road leading through snowy mountains at sunrise.View from a car of a snowy road leading to distant mountains, with a vehicle ahead and utility poles.A snowy mountain road winds through pine trees under a clear blue sky, seen from inside a vehicle.A snowy winding mountain road lined with pine trees under a clear blue sky, viewed from a car.Snow-covered mountains under a clear blue sky, with evergreen trees and sparse bushes in the snowy foreground.A snow-covered road curves through a forest of snow-dusted trees towards a snow-capped mountain under a clear blue sky.Snow-covered mountains and trees line a large blue lake, with a snowy roadside and a car's side mirror.Bright sun over a blue lake, snow-capped mountains, a snowy road, and a car's side mirror.

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