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A Few Bluebird Days Above Lake Tahoe

·Placer County, California·#winter#california#tahoe#skiing#snow#truckee
A wide landscape view of a vast blue lake, surrounded by snow-dusted pine forests and distant snow-capped mountains under a clear blue sky.

A few bluebird days in a row now, and this one went to skiing over on the Placer County side. From the top of the ridge the whole of Tahoe was out — the lake dark blue past the timbered valley below, the far-shore ranges still white down to the treeline.

It's late February and the snowpack is telling on itself. Up in the bowls the cover is deep and the rocks are mostly buried, but the lower slopes are patchy, dirt showing through the trees on anything that faces south. Classic in-between: winter up top, spring working its way up from the valley floor.

One odd cloud sat over the ridge for a while, a thick lens of it with blue on all sides, and then it was gone.

Finished on the flats near the road, where somebody had run three tight circles around a knee-high pine, tracks still crisp in the snow.

A wide landscape view of a blue lake, snow-capped mountains, and a valley filled with evergreen trees.A snowy mountain range covered in evergreen trees under a blue sky with clouds, seen from a ski slope.Snowy mountains covered in dark evergreen forests under a bright blue sky with white clouds and a contrail.Snowy ski slope with pine trees overlooks a large blue lake and distant snow-capped mountains under a bright blue sky.Snow-covered mountain slope with many evergreen trees under a blue sky with light clouds.A snow-covered field with tire tracks forming circles around a small tree, surrounded by tall pine trees under a clear blue sky.

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